


My Future in Your Hands

by solomonara



Series: Mischief's Malice [1]
Category: Gundam Wing, Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Get-Together Fic, Kidnapping, M/M, PTSD, Post-Endless Waltz, Swearing, Time Travel, Torture, Violence, asexual Heero, canon appropriate stupidity, empath Quatre, established Quatre/Trowa, graphic depictions of pain, ignores Frozen Teardrop, merging of the Organizations, murder(s), plot heavy, rated M for those things not for sexy times, some Conan, some post-Conan, the Preventers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-06-06 11:38:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 76,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6752446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solomonara/pseuds/solomonara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaito KID is making his getaway from yet another successful heist when a young man dressed like a priest literally falls into his arms. Things get stranger from there. (Since this is a crossover, if you're familiar with one anime and not the other, chapter one contains links to a quick who's-who for either in the beginning notes!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Heero Yuy Successfully Evades the Police and Establishes a False Identity in 21st-Century Japan

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by the terribly patient [DragonSorceress22](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonSorceress22/pseuds/DragonSorceress22) even though she HATES. TIME. TRAVEL. (and i knew it, too)
> 
> I know these are an odd couple of anime to cross. The lovely [Cylina Nightshade](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Cylina/pseuds/Cylina%20Nightshade) suggested a quick who's-who guide for anyone familiar with one part of this crossover but not the other. Great idea! I posted a [summary of Gundam Wing characters](http://solomonara.tumblr.com/post/143968224269/a-gundam-wing-primer) and a [summary DCMK characters](http://solomonara.tumblr.com/post/143966125669/a-detective-conanmagic-kaito-primer) on my tumblr.
> 
> **A note on honorifics:** In the DCMK universe, almost everyone uses honorifics and they're very specific about who gets what in which situations (except Shinichi, who seems to just skip 'em, rude creature). 
> 
> In Gundam Wing they could not give a flying cupcake about such things and honorifics are rarely, if ever, used. Plus, they tend to arrange their names so that the family name comes last.
> 
> So, for the sake of your sanity, here's the rule I used when writing: the DCMK characters will use the same honorifics they do in the anime, and only in dialog - unless there's a reasonable English translation (ie, there's no real way to accurately translate Ran-neesan without sounding a little silly, but there's nothing wrong with using Inspector Nakamori instead of Nakamori-keibu). The GW characters will avoid the issue altogether.
> 
> (and "tantei-kun" is staying untranslated because, let's be real, it means something different when Kaito says it…)

_Another soccer ball lost,_ Kaito thought with a grin that was equal parts wicked and gleeful as the sporting equipment in question ruffled the air inches from his face and disappeared into the night. He and the soccer ball were sailing away from a heist that was more successful than he’d expected – but then, tantei-kun had been off his game, obviously distracted by something. _That’ll teach him to try and multi-task._

Kaito looked back over his shoulder, grin still plastered across his face, and waved at the tiny detective scowling at him from a rapidly diminishing roof.

And that was his only mistake that evening. But it was a bad one. Of course, even if he’d been facing forward, he couldn’t have avoided crashing into the person suddenly occupying his airspace because that person simply had not been there a fraction of a second before. But if he _had_ been facing forward, he _might_ have been able to control his descent rather than plunging several feet, tangling his glider, making a frantic grab for the unexpected ( _priest?!—wow that’s a lot of hair—unconscious—shit—catch him_ ) visitor, then spiraling in a rapid descent between buildings, buffeted by wind currents, only to crash onto a balcony, the location of which was precisely noted by one overly large pair of bespectacled eyes that he’d left not nearly far enough behind.

Shit, shit, _shit_.

Kaito unceremoniously dumped the unresponsive young man to the floor of the balcony, stowed the glider as best he could, and looked around, frantic. The balcony seemed to be a residential one. Luckily, the apartment to which it was attached was completely dark. Good. He could just borrow some clothes from his inexplicable passenger (this guy _owed_ him and was conveniently wearing all black) and make his exit via fire escape.

Kaito had barely touched a button, though, when he felt a distressingly familiar shape pressing against his ribs.

"I think we should get to know each other a little better before we go getting undressed, don’t you?" The guy spoke Japanese with the most bizarre accent Kaito had ever heard, but that hardly distracted Kaito from the gun poking into his chest. He raised his hands with a charming smile.

"My mistake. I’ll just take my leave then," he said, planning to vanish promptly. But then he froze, still crouched over the young man. Something was—

"Looking for this?" The stranger’s free hand produced the acorn-sized diamond that had been the object of the evening’s heist.

 _Pickpocketed? By a priest?!_ Kaito didn’t let the scowl out, though. "Hey, now, haven’t you taken a vow of poverty?" he asked innocently. The other man blinked, confused for an instant, then began to laugh, closing his fist securely around the diamond. Kaito laughed, too. Right before detonating a sleeping gas capsule in his face.

Carefully holding his breath until the last of the gas dispersed, Kaito eased the pickpocket back to the cold concrete floor of the balcony. He carefully removed the gun from one hand, tucking it away for future disposal, then checked the other hand, which was still clenched…

…around thin air. The diamond was gone.

Really ready to lose his temper now, Kaito checked the solid floor of the balcony, then began going over the once-more unconscious priest/pickpocket/skydiver. His search turned up an earpiece (not broadcasting or receiving) and some kind of micro-camera (quite dead) clipped to the front of the guy's shirt, but further inspection was interrupted by the scream of sirens below. Kaito swore under his breath, considered the slumbering… whoever it was... and made a decision. That disturbingly good kid detective would be with the approaching officers. He couldn’t risk sticking around. This mystery man was coming with him and he could explain what had happened to the diamond when he woke up – somewhere secure.

 

*

 

As he made his way swiftly and efficiently to one of his bolt-holes, hauling the mercifully light thieving priest over his shoulder, Kaito was unaware that, for once, he had not correctly anticipated Edogawa Conan’s actions. The boy detective had not, in fact, accompanied the police as they raced toward Kaito’s landing place. This was because, unlike Kaito KID, Conan had had a big-picture view of the events that occurred in Tokyo’s sky that evening. And, unlike Kaito KID, he had seen the second person appear moments after the first in KID’s wake.

Conan watched in horror as a young man dressed only in a green tank top and black spandex shorts plummeted through the air from nowhere. He wasted half a second wondering what the trick was before shouting into his Junior Detective communication badge to anyone who would listen to _throw the damn lever! Now!_

Jirokichi Suzuki's plan this evening had, luckily, involved a large net stretched between long poles attached to the outside of the building at intervals. The poles would spring up when the lever was pulled, stretching the net between them and, in theory, smacking Kaito KID in the face as he tried to glide away. The poles would stand out from the building at an angle, creating a netted slope that KID would roll down in an uncontrollable descent before fetching up against the side of the building, where the task force would simply open a window and haul him away.

What with one thing and another (namely: a clever double disguise and a well-placed wet floor sign) the trap had never been deployed. Luckily, Ayumi was always ready. Ignoring the shouts of various adults, she threw herself at the lever and out sprang the net.

The free-falling newcomer had spread his arms and legs, possibly in a vain effort to slow his descent, but didn’t look remotely panicked. He hit the net and bounced, rolling down it just as Jirokichi had intended KID to do. Only, this person was clearly in control of his roll, because as he neared the wall of windows waiting for him, he pulled out a gun ( _from where??_ Conan’s brain demanded. He didn’t have an answer for it.) and shot the window he was headed for three times before hitting it feet first and somersaulting in a shower of glass into the room beyond.

Conan bolted for the roof door and pelted down the stairs, bursting into the room just minutes later to find the guy standing passively with the gun at his feet and his hands behind his head surrounded by ten members of the KID task force who’d been left behind just in case – and who didn’t seem to quite know what to do with a person who just _surrendered_.

Deep blue eyes noted Conan and assessed him rapidly. Though it took only a second, Conan definitely saw the guy’s eyes linger on each of his gadgets – shoes, belt, bow tie, badge, watch, glasses – and narrowed his own eyes in response. The stranger’s expression didn’t change. He wasn’t even breathing heavily after having fallen from nowhere and shooting his way into a building. All he had to show for the adventure were a few tiny scrapes on his knees and arms from where he’d rolled in the glass.

"Ah HA!" Jirokichi blustered into the room triumphantly. "I knew Inspector Nakamori had gone off chasing a dummy." He rubbed his hands together gleefully and approached the still-stoic intruder, who watched unconcerned. Conan rolled his eyes. Unless KID was actually a much better actor than he gave him credit for (and he gave him a lot of credit), this guy wasn’t KID. KID was long gone, and he had taken half of a new mystery with him. The other half was standing right here, having his faced pinched by an old man and actually showing some surprise about it.

Jirokichi’s glee rapidly turned to consternation as the face between his fingers refused to pull away. Conan could see he was about two seconds from deciding that he'd caught Kaito KID without a disguise, and the surprise on the stranger’s face was slowly shifting into something considerably more deadly, so he took action. He widened his eyes, tilted his head, and said,

"Hey, Jiisan, isn’t that guy too short to be KID?"

"Eh?" Jirokichi stepped back and sized the guy up. He was, in fact, several inches shorter than KID. "All right, explain yourself! Who are you?" he demanded. The young man remained silent, gaze fixed on an invisible point just beyond Jirokichi’s right shoulder. Conan had seen the look on military types before and added it to his growing mental file on this person. "Nothing to say?" Jirokichi asked, then grinned and rubbed his hands together. "Well then! I’d say we’ve caught KID’s accomplice! Cuff him, team!"

The task force leapt to it with alacrity, but met with no resistance. The cuffs clicked into place and Jirokichi lead the way out of the room with five task force officers at his back, then the stranger, then five more officers. Conan watched them file past, puzzled. What was this guy’s plan? To get arrested?

That certainly seemed to be the case – right up until the group turned a corner. With half his escort out of sight for just a moment, the prisoner suddenly yanked his arms apart, actually snapping the chain connecting the cuffs. Then he was launching himself off a task force officer, the wall, and then into the air vent set near the ceiling as chaos erupted behind him.

Conan stared dumbfounded as the officers who had been in the lead turned around rapidly trying to figure out what had happened behind them, crashing directly into those who had been following as they lurched forward to try to catch the escaping prisoner. Several of them at once tried to climb each other to follow the young man into the vents while Jirokichi howled orders. Then Conan snapped out of it. This was a KID heist. They had cameras in the vents. He sprinted to the control center.

 

While the task force was still trying to follow him into the vents, Heero was leaving the building. He’d followed the ductwork to the ground level and then to the outer wall, guided by the brief glimpse he’d gotten of the building from the air. He slipped out of the ductwork and ducked out a door into an alley to consider his options.

He needed to find something to actually open the cuffs. They had been laughably easy to break, a joke compared to what his enemies usually used as restraints, but they would still be conspicuous around his wrists. And unlike Duo, he didn’t habitually carry lock picks.

Duo... If he could find him quickly, conspicuousness wouldn’t matter. He’d hoped the same enemy who had seemed so ready for him in the building had also captured Duo, but after listening to them for a short time and then seeing their laughable means of containment, he’d decided there was no way Duo was being held by them.

"Um, excuse me?"

Heero whirled, pulling out the gun he’d snatched from one of the task force on his way out. The person who had spoken let out a tiny squeak and squeezed her eyes shut. Heero pointed the gun away immediately. It was a little girl, no older than the kid in the room with all the officers had been. That boy had been armed to the teeth, though, and this girl had nothing more than a communication device on her.

Heero turned, intending to simply leave.

"Oh – wait! Conan-kun said to please ask you to wait and we’ll help you find your friend," the girl exclaimed. Heero stopped.

"What do you know?" he asked, turning back to her intently. She took a step back. The door to the alley slammed open and the boy from earlier ran out. Heero trained his weapon on him instantly.

"Stop scaring Ayumi," the boy – Conan, Heero surmised – ordered, despite being the one staring down a gun. He was breathing a little heavily, though it was from running, not fear.

"How did you know where I’d be?" Heero asked.

"Cameras in the vents," Conan said calmly. "No one else thought to check them. But they will soon. Put that away unless you want to get arrested. Again."

"Why would you help me?"

"We’re detectives," the girl piped.

"And finding your friend means finding Kaito KID," Conan added. Heero recognized the look in his eye. He nodded once and put the gun away. Conan tried to follow where it went but couldn’t.

"He’s your mission," Heero said.

"Uh, I don’t know if I’d—"

"Conan-kun is KID’s natural enemy!" Ayumi said helpfully. Heero nodded again.

"Fine. But if you can’t keep up, I’ll find him on my own," he said, turning to leave again.

"Wait, where are you going?" Conan asked.

"To find Kaito KID," Heero said, walking down the alley.

"What – no, hang on," Conan ran around in front of him and put his hands up to stop him, Ayumi trailing him worriedly. Heero considered five ways to remove the small human from his path. Only three of them were violent. "You don’t even know where to start. _You_ should come with _me_ , not the other way around."

"Another run-in with your police won’t end well." _For them_.

"A friend of mine is on his way. We’ll talk you out of it. You’ve already got kind of an accent… Can you be American?"

Heero blinked, then nodded.

"Good. Ayumi?" Conan nodded at Heero’s side.

"Got it!" Ayumi grabbed one of Heero’s hands in both of her own. Heero looked down in astonishment as she beamed back up at him.

"No one’s going to arrest you with Ayumi hanging on to you like that. That’ll give us time to talk. Can you try to look a little friendlier?" Conan said. Heero’s gaze didn’t waver and the boy sighed. "Guess this is good enough. Come on!"

 

And so Heero Yuy emerged from an alley in twenty-first century Tokyo escorted by two tiny beaming children and was introduced to the head of a specialized task force as a teenage American detective in town visiting his uncle, Agasa Hiroshi.

"You’re kidding me. Another one?" Inspector Nakamori asked, rubbing the back of his head. "What are they feeding these kids… well, what’s your name, detective?"

Heero almost lied on instinct, but then considered that Duo would be looking for him, too. Besides, if he was right about where he was, it wouldn’t matter.

"Heero Yuy."

"Oh? Japanese-American, eh?"

"I was named after Uncle Hiro," Heero said seriously. Conan made a choking noise at his side.

"I see. Well then, Mr. Yuy, what do you mean by assaulting my officers?"

"My apologies, Inspector."

Conan gave a mental roll of his eyes and stepped forward. "Heero-niichan thought KID was getting away! He wanted to see if he could catch him! But I told him _you_ had probably already caught KID. You were right on his tail, weren’t you?" he asked.

Inspector Nakamori’s jaw clenched. "He escaped," he ground out. "We’re just going to review the tapes now, if everything’s really in order with this young man." Nakamori eyed Heero. He could understand eagerness to catch KID, certainly. Plus everyone knew Americans were kind of crazy. And it wasn’t like anyone had been hurt. Then his gaze fell on Heero’s wrist, still circled by a cuff with half the chain dangling off of it. "Now hang on a second—"

"Shinichi-niichan called and said he met Heero-niichan in America!" Conan exclaimed hastily, hoping to forestall Nakamori's budding suspicion. If Heero was startled by this sudden new information, he didn’t show it. Neither did Ayumi, to her credit. "He said you can call him if you’re not sure." Conan’s grin practically sparkled.

"I’m supposed to just—"

"Hang on!" Conan froze at the sound of Ran’s voice ringing loud and clear over the post-heist clean-up. She came jogging over from where she had been talking with Sonoko.

"Eh heh. Ran-neechan…"

"Did you just say Shinichi called you?"

"No! Or, yes? Um, he called Heero-niichan," Conan said, fighting the urge to hide behind Heero’s hand, which he was still holding. He lost that fight, but luckily Ran’s attention was diverted.

"You know Shinichi?" she demanded.

"We met in America," Heero said. Outwardly, he was calm. But he was also looking for an escape route. There were way too many people here and he was wasting time.

"Shinichi's in America?" Ran said, almost to herself. Conan cringed and then Sonoko was there immediately.

"Don't you _dare_ let that jerk get into your head from wherever he ran off to without telling you!" she exclaimed, grabbing Ran's shoulders. "You owe him nothing, and there are better things on the horizon! Tomorrow at eight, to be exact."

Ran laughed a little. "I'm not canceling our double date. But look, just because I'm pissed off at Shinichi and... um, looking to the horizon, I guess... doesn't mean I can't be worried about him. We're still _friends._ "

Sonoko nodded sagely. "Good. Because Taro-kun is freaking perfect for you and Shinichi would say the same thing if he were here."

Ran looked skeptical, but Conan couldn't hide his surprise. Sonoko was right, even if she was just trying to cheer Ran up. Conan had thought he'd feel resentment, or loss, or something like that the first few times Sonoko and Makoto started bringing Taro, a dojo-mate, along to hang out with the obvious intent of doing a little matchmaking. What he'd actually felt, though, was _relief_. That had been at least a month and two exploratory dates ago, and that feeling hadn't changed. And that was a complex emotion that would have to be sorted out later.

"Hey, Conan-kun! Ayumi-chan!" The other half of the Junior Detective League came running up. Heero tensed. Enough was enough. Conan felt it and tightened his grip on Heero’s hand. The message was clear: _if you bolt, you’re taking me with you_. Heero glared down at him.

"Hey, who’s this?" Genta demanded, looking suspiciously up at Heero.

"You know him, Ayumi-chan?" Mitsuhiko asked.

"Now wait just a minute, kids, this is—" Nakamori attempted to regain control of the situation but was once again interrupted, this time by the sudden arrival of a little yellow car, which came to a halt directly behind him, disgorging a beaming, jovial Professor Agasa.

"Professor!" Conan greeted him with an energetic wave and a significant look up at Heero.

"Ah!" Professor Agasa said, bustling over. "Heero, my boy!" He snatched up Heero's hand and gave it a vigorous, American shake while Heero stood rigid as a rabbit that’s scented a fox. "So sorry for the trouble, Inspector, this little scamp is always causing a ruckus," Professor Agasa said while simultaneously bundling Heero toward the vehicle. The kids all rushed along with him, since Agasa was their ride home, and in the confusion Nakamori’s protests went unremarked.

"I’m staying at the Professor’s tonight, Ran-neechan!" Conan shouted out the window as Agasa cruised off. Ran waved goodbye as Nakamori shook his head in defeat. Things were complicated when KID was involved. They were _more_ complicated when Edogawa Conan turned up. He was better off letting this one go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT CONAN'S HINT!  
> "This… is the worst lair I have ever been held captive in."


	2. In Which Duo Meets a Fighting Magician Terrorist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, in case you missed it, I wrote a brief "Who's Who" for DCMK and for GW. Links to those are now located in the beginning note of Chapter One to help out anyone who is unfamiliar with one of the anime represented in this fic and wants to read it anyway :)

Heero might have landed exactly where he needed to be, but elsewhere Duo Maxwell was not having quite as easy a time of it. Shortly after Heero was scampering into the air vents at the site of the heist, Duo was groggily coming to flung over the shoulder of a phantom thief.

"Hey," he mumbled muzzily. "You kidnappin’ me?"

Kaito KID paused mid-step, but only for a fraction of a second before continuing toward the edge of the rooftop he was currently crossing.

"You shouldn’t be awake yet," he said testily, looking for the right brick in the roof’s ledge. It was a little hard to wiggle loose while balancing a drugged priest over one shoulder, but he managed. The brick came away to reveal a coil of cord, one end of which was tied to a bolt in the side of the building. KID shoved the coil over the edge and it unfurled into the black space between the buildings, a tiny, unintentional courtyard left behind and forgotten due to uncoordinated planning in the construction of the surrounding buildings.

"Full of surprisAAAAAAAH!"

KID’s sudden plunge over the edge of the building (controlled, of course, by the cable) left Duo clutching desperately at any part of KID he could grab.

"I’d try to hold still, Mr. Priest," KID said brightly. "You wouldn’t want me to drop you." He slowed his descent and rappelled the rest of the way down the building. As soon as KID’s feet touched the ground, Duo thrashed his way out of his grip. KID let him go.

"There’s nowhere to run, Mr. Priest," KID said, reaching out and giving the cable a very specific sort of yank. The entire length fell to the ground.

"Well that’s fine by me," Duo said, glancing around. The entire space was no more than a ten-by-ten square, brick walls on all sides stretching upward several dozen feet. Duo cracked his knuckles and grinned at KID. "Looks like it’s just you and me. That was a mistake, buddy. Cuz I need some answers and you’re looking like the one to give them to me."

KID cocked his head to the side. "That seems reasonable. I’ll trade you answers for that diamond you stole from me."

"Like I’m just gonna hand back the thing that started this whole mess in the first place," Duo scoffed.

 _Interesting,_ KID thought. "Then I’ll take it back, and you can live without answers," he said out loud, taking a step toward Duo. Predictably, the other man fell into a fighting crouch. KID released a smoke bomb and disappeared before Duo’s eyes, turning up almost instantly behind him. Duo whirled, swinging, but KID smoothly sidestepped and caught Duo’s wrist in a handcuff as it flew past his nose. He held on to the other end of the pair of handcuffs and used them to twirl Duo around like a dancer before pulling both of Duo's hands behind his back to secure the other wrist. Gripping the chain between the cuffs in one hand, he put the other on Duo’s shoulder and shoved him toward the wall, pressing him up against it.

"What the hell," Duo complained, though he sounded more put out than angry or scared. "You’re a _fighting magician_ terrorist? How the hell does that work?"

"You swear a lot for a priest," KID noted absently. He was looking for another brick, reaching high on the wall and pressing Duo’s face against it as he did so. Duo tried to buck him off, but just then KID found the correct brick and the wall opened, spilling both of them forward into a dusty hallway. The wall swung shut behind them, leaving them in pitch blackness for just an instant before KID snapped a glow-stick, revealing what looked like a perfectly ordinary door just a few steps away.

"Right this way, Mr. Priest," KID said, opening the door with a flourish.

"You know, you can stop acting like you don’t know my name," Duo said, obligingly preceding KID into the room. Getting to see an enemy’s secret hideout was always a good thing. Escape could wait. "It’s not exactly a secret these days."

"I hate to disappoint you, but it seems you’re not as famous as you – what?" KID had practically run into Duo after following him into the room, as the pilot had stopped stock still a few steps in.

"This… is the worst lair I have ever been held captive in." The floor was carpeted in a low-pile, inoffensive neutral shade of grey. There was a futon rolled up in one corner, and a low square table directly in the center of the room. On the wall to Duo’s right was an enormous wardrobe. To his left was an open doorway into a small galley-style kitchen. The whole place was lit softly by a tall, thin lamp in one corner and very ordinary fluorescent lighting from the kitchen.

KID shut the door a little harder than was necessary and worked the hidden lock in a huff. "It’s not a _lair_." It wasn’t his _favorite_ bolt hole – indeed, that was why he’d brought the guy to _this_ one. He wouldn’t be able to use it again after this. But he wouldn’t stand by and have it insulted. "Are you always this dramatic?"

Duo slowly, deliberately looked KID up and down with raised eyebrows, taking in the cape, the bright blue shirt with the red tie, the top hat, the monocle. "Me? You’re the one dressed like a twenty-first century magician."

"I _am_ a twenty-first century magician. What’s your excuse for dressing like a priest about to go horseback riding?" KID snapped.

"What the hell do you mean you’re a— oh. Shit. _Shit_. Fucking _hell_." The blood drained from Duo’s face and KID regarded him with mild alarm.

"Why don’t you sit down, Mr. Priest?"

Duo did so without thinking, sinking to one of the cushions around the table while KID went into the kitchen. Duo vaguely heard dishes clattering, then a microwave running. His fingers (still cuffed behind his back with the rest of his hands) found the end of his braid and worked automatically. By the time KID returned to the main room with a steaming mug of hot chocolate, Duo was able to accept it with both hands, the cuffs left carelessly on the table next to him.

KID raised his eyebrows as he handed over the cup and Duo looked at his own wrists in surprise.

"Oh. Huh. I guess this is where I make my daring escape."

"You can _try_. The lock on that door isn’t exactly ordinary. And then there’s the hidden switch in the wall outside that you’ll never find. And the small matter of having to scale a building to get out of the courtyard… all in all, I’d say you’re better off giving me the diamond back."

Duo’s expression turned guarded and he put down the hot chocolate. KID sat down quickly, hoping to put him back at ease. He sat next to him rather than putting the table between them in order to show trust, close but not so close that he might be perceived as a threat. He had questions piling up by the minute and he was just about dying to know the answers. When it became clear that Duo wasn’t going to offer those immediately, KID decided to move things along.

"You know, I checked all the normal places you might hide a lock pick while you were out, so that's a pretty good trick," he said, nodding to the handcuffs on the table. "Want to see another one?"

Duo raised his eyebrows, expression clearly stating that he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. KID grinned. "It seems there’s something in your ear." His hand flashed out toward Duo’s ear, but he actually reached a little further, nimble fingers slipping into the thick hair at the top of Duo’s braid and plucking out the diamond he’d deduced must be there. He was quick enough and subtle enough that he should be able to make it look as though he had really just pulled the stone from Duo’s ear.

It had only taken an instant and he was already pulling his hand back to reveal the diamond when Duo surged forward, grabbed KID around the throat, and slammed him backward onto the table. KID felt cold metal at his temple and his hat was rolling woefully away. Duo seemed to be deciding whether to shoot him in the head or strangle him with one hand. He was bent over KID, face twisted in an animalistic snarl.

"Cah… guh…" KID choked out.

" _What?_ " Duo growled, letting up the pressure on his throat an infinitesimal amount.

"’S… not a gun," KID said. "Card gun."

Duo’s eyebrows contracted as he tried to figure out what the heck a card gun was. At least it seemed to distract him from his murderous intent. Finally he simply raised the gun from KID’s temple and, not breaking eye contact with the phantom thief, fired it at the wall. When the sound of a metal card sticking into the wall _twang_ ed through the room, Duo looked down at the gun in disbelief.

"I do not know what to say about this."

KID coughed significantly and Duo gave him a considering look before releasing his grip and backing away slowly, still holding the card gun. KID straightened but remained sitting, massaging his throat with one gloved hand. At least Duo hadn’t found the actual gun that KID had taken off of him earlier. That one was currently stashed in a cupboard behind the teacups.

"Can we please agree that neither of us actually wants to kill the other?" KID requested somewhat plaintively.

"Look buddy, you don’t touch my hair and we won’t have a problem. Well, I mean, unless you decide to keep me here much longer. I got friends who’ll come looking and they ain’t as cuddly as me."

"Don’t worry," KID said, holding his hand upright and spreading it so that Duo could see the diamond glittering between his index and middle fingers. "I’ve already got the main thing I wanted."

"Damn," Duo said, and it was more appreciation than anger.

"Figured if you were keeping lock picks in there, there might be all sorts of other goodies. And the diamond is too heavy to be anywhere but the thickest part," KID said, rolling the gem across his knuckles before vanishing it. Duo scowled.

"So if you’re not planning on killing me, then you’re not with the Clubs, so…What do you want with it?" Duo asked.

"I need to take a closer look at it. And then I should probably give it back to Mr. Suzuki, since it’s his after all," KID answered easily, filing away "the Clubs" for future research.

"If it’s his, why do you have it?"

"Because I stole it. You happen to be in the presence of the world-renowned gentleman thief, Kaito KID." KID stretched his arm out to the side and gave a half bow, the dignity of which was only marginally diminished by the fact that he was sitting cross-legged on a rather flat cushion in a windowless basement.

"You’re a _what_ ," Duo said flatly. KID sighed.

"Look, it’s just what I do, okay?"

"Well then, as one thief to another: you’re doing it wrong."

"Okay, that’s it." KID stood, retrieved his hat, dusted it off, and replaced it on his head with aplomb. "You fall out of the sky in the middle of _my_ heist, I save your ungrateful butt from falling twenty storeys, you return the favor by pickpocketing me – _me!_ – you’re rude enough to wake up long before you should and see the way to my hidey-hole here, and your accent is like nothing I’ve ever heard – though I can’t help but note it gets more and more normal every time you open your mouth. You, Mr. Priest, are a mystery, and those are not my thing. I think I finally know what to do with you, though."

"Unless the next words outta your mouth are ‘I’m gonna to let you go,’ we’re gonna have another disagreement," Duo said, backing up until he was leaning against the door. He crossed his arms, card gun still dangling from one hand, and regarded KID coolly.

"Oh dear. That _isn’t_ what I was going to say," KID said, shaking his head in mock sadness. "I suppose we will have to agree to disagree." With that, KID detonated a large smoke bomb (twice what he would ordinarily need, based on previous experience). As pink smoke filled the room, he slipped on a gas mask and stepped forward just in time to catch Duo as his body went slack and he fell, muttering curse words under his breath before finally passing entirely into unconsciousness.

 

*

 

Rain was dribbling down the windows by the time Professor Agasa, Conan, and Heero reached the professor's house. They had had to make various stops to drop off the rest of the Junior Detectives, a delay Heero put up with only because he was sandwiched in the middle of three children for the bulk of the ride and the car didn't come with a self-destruct button.

They'd dropped off Ayumi last, but only after she tried to make Conan promise to keep her filled in on how this case was going. Conan side-stepped the promise smoothly, saying that this was Heero's case now and he'd have to follow Heero's instructions on what it was okay to share. After Conan dug his elbow into Heero's side, the pilot had nodded solemnly.

"In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Conan sat the rest of this one out," Heero said, earning a nervous laugh from Conan and a dubious look from Ayumi. She finally consented to leave, seeming resigned to the fact that this case, like so many others, was going to play out without her involvement. The rest of the car ride was short and blessedly silent, with the exception of a bit of tuneless humming from Agasa.

"It might be time for another one of your riddle adventures, Professor," Conan murmured as they entered the professor's house, Heero scanning the immediate area for any sign of threat or trap. "I shouldn't have gotten Ayumi involved as much as I did on this one. It's way weirder than a normal heist."

"Oh, I think I've got just the thing," Agasa said. "Something a little more their speed, yes? Something they can solve without you." He chuckled thinking of it. "Yes, we can do something next weekend. And don't worry about Ayumi-kun. She doesn't really expect to be involved in a KID case. She knows it always comes down to you and him."

"You go up against this KID regularly?" Heero asked.

"Sort of," Conan said, leading the way into the kitchen. "He's a jewel thief. But he's also a magician. He's... hard to explain. Here, let's get those off of you," he said, gesturing at the handcuffs. "Professor, can you tell Haibara we have a guest so she doesn't try to shoot him or something?"

Agasa nodded and wandered off while Conan stood on his tip-toes to rummage around in a junk drawer for a handcuff key. Heero watched him with narrowed eyes. He didn't know much about what would be considered a normal childhood, but a few things seemed off here.

"Aren't you a little young to have a nemesis?" Heero asked – and he truly was asking. He needed more data about... everything.

"I'm precocious," Conan said flatly. He found the handcuff key and tossed it to Heero, who let himself out of the cuffs. They dropped to the table one after the other with dull clanks and Heero rotated his sore wrists. Conan noted the bright red welts with interest. "You must be pretty strong, huh?" he asked brightly.

"We've wasted enough time," Heero said. "I need to find Duo."

"That's the guy who appeared before you?"

"Yes. He was unconscious when he went through the portal. And now a jewel thief has him." Heero's hand clenched into a fist, seemingly without his notice. It didn't escape Conan's, though.

"KID won't hurt him," Conan said hurriedly.

"You can't know that."

"No, I do. He _won't_. We have plenty of time to sit down and figure out—"

But Conan was interrupted by rapid footfalls on the stairs, too light to be Professor Agasa's. Heero had a gun out and trained on the doorway in the blink of an eye as a small blonde girl who looked about Conan's age rushed around the corner. She froze when she saw him.

"Our guest, I presume," she said.

"Heero, cut it out, that's Haibara. She lives here. And I thought you gave that gun back to the taskforce!" Conan protested. Heero shrugged and lowered the weapon.

"Charming," said Haibara dryly. "But more importantly, there's an unconscious man in the observatory."

 

The unconscious man in the observatory was, in fact, Duo, which solved one problem. The bright pink ribbon tied around the end of his braid with a note and a diamond nestled in it solved another. Yes, everything was shaping up quite nicely with this turn of events, and that made Conan suspicious. He knelt beside the black-clad young man and pinched his cheek.

Suddenly Heero's hand was on the back of Conan's collar pulling him up and away and depositing him out of arm's reach of Duo, where Haibara was standing with her arms crossed, watching silently.

"Did I mention KID's a master of disguise?" Conan groused, annoyed at being manhandled.

"You didn't," Heero said, but he was distracted checking Duo over for injuries. He'd unceremoniously set aside the ribbon, diamond, and note, so Conan examined those instead.

 

_This isn't nearly shiny enough for me. And the jewel isn't the right one either. Please return it to Mr. Suzuki with my compliments._

It was signed with KID's trademark doodle.

"How did he know to bring him here?" Conan wondered quietly. Haibara shrugged.

"Maybe if you told me absolutely anything about what's going on here I could hazard a guess," she said.

"Right. Sorry. These two kind of... appeared in the middle of the sky during the heist. Remember those weird magnetic fluctuations we were seeing? We thought KID was setting up some powerful electronics or something, but now I'm thinking it had something to do with those two," he said, soft enough that their conversation wouldn't be overheard. The anomalies he'd mentioned had appeared a full day before the heist was scheduled and had interested Professor Agasa greatly. He'd begun monitoring the area, certain that what they were seeing was an independent event unrelated to the heist. Conan hadn't been so sure, and it had lead to him being slightly distracted during this confrontation with KID.

"Could be a set-up. They could be working with him. Some kind of long game?"

"That doesn't explain how they appeared out of _thin air_. There's nothing. No trick to uncover. No mirrors, no smoke, no hidden trap door. Plus, that guy's playing for keeps," Conan said, nodding to Heero, who was peeling back one of Duo's eyelids now and studying his pupil dilation. "KID doesn't use guns. That guy won't _stop_ using them. Or trying to. If this is a game, it isn't KID's."

Haibara looked at him sharply. "The Organization?" she breathed.

Conan shrugged. "This would be a weird way for them to operate, but... well, we need more facts before we can start hypothesizing."

"Guess it's a good thing he's waking up, then."

Conan's gaze snapped back to Duo, who was indeed making uncoordinated arm movements in Heero's direction to get him to stop checking his head for lumps.

"'M fine, quit it. It was just sleeping gas."

" _Sleeping gas_ knocked you out? How long?" Heero demanded.

"I dunno, he used a lot. Get off." Despite those words, Duo reached out and used Heero to pull himself into a sitting position. Conan was at his side in an instant.

"Where did KID take you? Do you know where he is now? Did he say anything to you?"

Duo looked at Conan, blinked, looked back to Heero, then looked _around_ Heero to where Haibara was standing across the room. She nodded solemnly at him. Duo looked back to Heero. "I'm gone for two minutes and you acquire tiny sidekicks. _You._ And children. What the hell is going on here?"

"Actually that's something we'd all like to know," Haibara commented.

"Later – what about _KID_ ," Conan insisted. "Why did he carry you off?"

Duo gave Conan a quizzical look. "Heero?"

"They're all right." If this household was a criminal organization, it wasn't a particularly good one. That, or it was astonishingly good. Either way, they were what he and Duo had to work with.

"Well, then, it was probably because I'd stolen the same thing he had. That little beauty." Duo pointed at the diamond, lying forlornly in its tangle of pink ribbon. "As for the rest, I can't help you. He's got a heavy hand with that knock-out gas," Duo said, rubbing the back of his neck a little sheepishly.

"I know why KID wanted the diamond – well, sort of. But why did _you_?" Conan wondered. Duo shrugged, then winced as the action tweaked a few muscles that had been pushed a bit beyond their usual capacity in the past several hours. "It's kind of a long story."

Haibara frowned. "I think between your appearing-out-of-thin-air act and KID's liberal abuse of aerosolized anesthetics you probably need medical attention," she said. "You can tell your story while I check you over." At Duo's skeptical look, she smiled thinly and added, "It's okay. I'm a doctor."

"Look, kid—"

"Duo," Heero said. "These kids are far more intelligent than average. They're being raised by an old scientist and using their skills on missions for him." Conan and Haibara exchanged a quick glance at Heero's not-quite-accurate assessment, but remained quiet as his words seemed to have a positive effect on Duo, who shook his head and grinned.

 "Well damn if that doesn't sound familiar. All right then, Doc, lead the way."

The four went down to the lab, Haibara and Conan in the lead with Duo and Heero trailing just a bit behind. Both were having hushed conversations of their own.

"You told them you're a doctor?!" Conan exclaimed – quietly.

"Is there a better way to get them into a vulnerable position?" Haibara said. "They'll tell us their story, you'll spot anything off or suspicious-sounding, and since we'll be in the lab I'll be able to... take the necessary steps to make sure they aren't a problem." At Conan's vaguely stunned look, she rolled her eyes. "I saw the marks on our gun-happy friend's wrists. If they're both that strong, there's no way we take them out in a head-to-head match, even with all your toys. Anyway, they're not Organization. They're all wrong."

Meanwhile, Heero and Duo's discussion was a little more heated, at least on one side.

"—in the goddamn _twenty-first century_ ," Duo hissed. "Like, how the _hell_ did they build a friggin' _time machine_?"

"Hopefully Quatre will have that answer for us when we get back," Heero replied calmly. He had quickly explained what he knew about the people they were now working with, and Duo had shared a few more details on KID's antics, but they were both somewhat stymied about their current predicament.

"And how _do_ we get back? And in the meantime, what do we tell the locals?"

"The truth."

"Are you _nuts_?"

"It's the most efficient way to find out if they can help us."

"They're gonna have us committed."

"Oh I don't know," said an older voice behind them as Professor Agasa stepped into the hallway, carrying a tray of steaming mugs. "It doesn't sound too crazy to _me_." He gave them a small smile that neither Duo nor Heero quite knew how to interpret. "Now let's get to the lab and have some tea while Ai-kun gets you sorted out and we can all put our cards on the table."

Heero nodded as though this was the most sensible thing in the world and Duo shook his head in defeat. When they got to the lab Duo flung himself into a chair while Haibara turned on her computer and gathered exam equipment and Agasa passed out the tea. Conan let a full thirty seconds pass before leaning forward in his own seat and prompting, "So?"

Heero opened his mouth to speak, but Duo interrupted him before he could get a word out. "No, don't, I can only imagine what it'll sound like if you tell it. If we're gonna tell 'em everything, let me."

Heero shrugged, unconcerned, and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.

"Where the hell do I even start with something like this," Duo muttered as Haibara pulled his arm out for a blood pressure test. "Well... here goes nothing. Hope I don't step on any butterflies."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT CONAN'S HINT!  
> "Oh hey would you look at the time, looks like we've got some breaking and entering to do!"


	3. In Which Our Heroes Engage in a Flashback to the Future

**_AC 198_ **

"Hey, Cat, you _sure_ this is where they took it?" Duo asked over the coms. Quatre was set up a few blocks away, monitoring the team and their surroundings to give them big-picture updates during the mission. Duo and Heero had paired off, as had Trowa and Wufei. Both pairs were approaching a low, run-down building from opposite directions. The building, located in a bad part of town, had only three floors and squatted between much taller structures. "What are they gonna do with all that gundanium in a place like this?"

"I'm sure. Registered schematics show only one basement," Quatre said, looking closely at the blueprint in the corner of his screen. The rest of the massive monitor showed various views from security cameras and the small cameras each of the pilots in the field was wearing. "If the building is gutted, there could be space for them to build a small mobile suit," he reasoned.

"Then let's put a stop to that before they get around to it, shall we? The last thing the world needs is a Gundam in play, least of all one controlled by the Clubs," Wufei said. Of the five, he was the only official Preventer – but he had called in the others as specialists when it became clear that they were dealing with an organization that was illegally acquiring large amounts of gundanium.

"And that's another thing," Duo commented as Heero boosted him up to a fire escape. The plan was to drop onto the target building from the fourth or fifth floor of one of its neighbors. "What kind of stupid name is 'The Clubs'? Is that supposed to be threatening?" He reached down to give Heero a hand up, but Mr. Perfect Soldier was already kicking off the wall to grab the grating and swing himself up. Duo rolled his eyes.

"If you must know, Maxwell, that's the name the Preventers gave them, and it's clubs as in a deck of cards, not a weapon," Wufei said. "Not that you need to know that in order to take them out today. Can you focus on the mission?"

"Speaking of codenames, maybe you guys could actually use them?" Quatre asked a little plaintively.

"Why bother? All five of us worked on the encryption for this channel. No one's gonna overhear us," Duo pointed out.

"That wouldn't stop someone who physically took your com," Trowa replied. Duo snorted.

"Yeah, cuz _that's_ likely." Duo and Heero reached their target floor and Duo jimmied a window open in a deserted hallway. "Seriously, is the person who named the Clubs the same one who named the Preventers? Because speaking of dumb names..."

"Looks like the Clubs name came from just one instance of a crime – the only one the Preventers were actually able to connect to this group," Quatre said, curiosity piqued. A few keystrokes had pulled up the relevant Preventers documentation on one of his smaller screens. "Apparently they stole a diamond from a museum and left a blank playing card with only a club drawn on it in its place. Pressure later applied to a suspected affiliate of the group revealed that this symbol is stamped on important internal communications – usually those coming from the leaders. Then— oh. Oh, dear."

"What? Oh dear what?!" Duo demanded.

"...Quatre," Wufei said slowly. "You're not supposed to have access to that information."

"What, really? Oh, gosh, I'm sorry, I didn't even see that firewall there. I'll put it back."

"Can we get back to the 'oh dear' part?" Duo hissed. He and Heero had settled in near a window with a view of the target building, waiting for full dark. Wufei and Trowa were doing the same somewhere at street level.

"It's just that the person who gave up the information vanished from the Preventers' Lake Victoria base and turned up a week later in Kuala Lumpur. Or, his body did."

Duo gave a low whistle of appreciation. "Impressive. How'd he get that far without flagging one of the Preventers' travel checkpoints, Wufei?" he asked innocently.

"He _didn't_ ," Wufei ground out.

"Really? Cuz—"

"I _mean_ , he was a week dead when he was found in Kuala Lumpur. Which means someone not only extracted him from a secure Preventers facility, they also killed him and then transported a corpse over seven thousand kilometers without anyone noticing, then deliberately left it somewhere a tourist would find it."

The silence that followed was a surprised one. Moving a corpse was far more difficult than disguising a person. Mail and cargo was all checked thoroughly, far more thoroughly than identities in these times of commonplace global – and extra-global – travel.

"Okay..." Trowa said, turning to Wufei as the sun slipped behind the skyline. "Who are these people? Really?"

"Well since Quatre will just accidentally research it anyway, I guess I might as well tell you," Wufei grumbled. He took a deep breath. "The Clubs are organized crime. They're _all_ of organized crime, as far as we can tell. They're everywhere on Earth, and possibly some of the colonies too. If a place has an underworld, their hands are in it. They're quiet, professional, and extremely loyal to upper management. The diamond theft was the _only_ thing we were ever able to tie back to them, and that was only because of that one weak link who thought he was safe in Preventers custody. The way he died ensures that no one else will ever even think of talking to us again. We know they're behind hundreds of criminal offenses, including this gundanium purchase, but we can't prove any of it. Which is why I am sitting here watching a sunset with you four instead of packing that building full of explosives and eliminating the threat the efficient way. We need proof."

The pilots were silent as Wufei crossed his arms and leaned scowling against the wall where he and Trowa were waiting. He hated admitting that the Preventers had been largely ineffective against the Clubs, even as he'd jumped at the chance to get the pilots working together on this mission. They were more effective than any Preventers team when they worked together, but he couldn't get any of them to formally join the group.

Duo, of course, was the first one to break the silence. "So," he said, and Wufei could just tell it was going to be a question that would make him grind his teeth. "What the heck does the Earth Mafia want with a diamond? We talkin' Star of Africa or what?"

"No," Quatre said. "Magician's Malice. A diamond, only twenty-four carats; small, for it to be the only target of the robbery. It was part of a touring exhibit about history's most famous thieves, and it wasn't even close to the most valuable thing in there. In fact, it was a couple of days before someone even noticed it was missing."

"Quatre," Wufei said warningly.

"Relax, I'm just looking at the newspapers from when it was stolen. Didn't even make front pages."

"We don't know why they wanted it, and we don't know why they left a calling card. But if it interests you so much, you could, I don't know, join the Preventers and investigate," Wufei said sweetly.

"Oh hey would you look at the time, looks like we've got some breaking and entering to do!" Duo said. "After you, Heero."

Heero opened the window and dropped the ten feet to the roof of the target building without missing a beat. He rolled silently and stood, making for the access door. Duo shook his head and let out a rappelling line, sliding just as silently to the rooftop and following Heero in.

The access door led to a short hallway terminating in stairs to the third floor. Duo descended and peeked around the corner while Heero covered him. At the bottom of the stairs, hallways lined with closed doors split off in three directions. It was obvious now that the interior of the building was _not_ gutted, which meant no mobile suit. Duo felt a little tension bleed out of him at that realization. Getting rid of a Gundam was never trivial. If there wasn't one, all they'd have to do was subdue anyone they found and locate the gundanium, and they could be on their way. Let the Preventers worry about figuring out how it was all connected.

Heero indicated his intention to go left with a jerk of his head. Duo nodded and headed right. Before too long he spotted a security camera. Moving carefully in its blind spot, he sidled up to it, jumped, and slipped a tap onto one of the wires. A few seconds later the camera twitched, then looked up and down instead of side to side.

"Thanks," Quatre said over the coms. "I've got camera control. I'll keep you posted on anything interesting."

"I could go for some interesting right about now," Duo muttered. "This is like infiltrating an office building so far. I could do this in my sleep."

"Yeah, this is strange. There's only two guards per floor. Heero's already taken out the ones on your floor. But I'm still reading – wait. What was that?"

"What was what?"

"Some kind of magnetic resonance... huh." Quatre switched to the group channel. "I'm reading electromagnetic interference on the second floor." As if on cue, the lights dimmed, then brightened. "Building is now pulling large amounts of power from the grid – we've got a surge on the second floor. Both teams, the path to that floor is clear, but there are no cameras on the second floor. I don't know what's waiting for you there."

"It's probably a trap," Trowa said, taking the opportunity to reload his gun. The guards from the first floor were bleeding quietly behind him from nonfatal wounds while Wufei secured them.

"Be a shame to let it go to waste," Duo said with a grin. "Heero?"

"Already at the stairs," Heero said. "If you don't hurry, I'm going without you."

Duo hurried around a corner and found Heero leaning impatiently against a wall at the top of a flight of stairs. "Is this the only way down?" Duo asked. Heero glanced up at an air vent set high in the wall. Duo grinned and nodded and Heero was gone.

"There's only one way up from the first floor," Wufei said over the com. "They'll be expecting us." He sounded eager.

"Be careful, you guys," Quatre said.

"Yeah, yeah," Duo replied. "Let's go!" He bounded down the stairs, taking them two at a time. On the first floor, Wufei took the lead while Trowa followed. Years of fighting together had made their timing perfect: Duo hit the second floor first – or rather, his flash grenade did. After hearing the shouts of consternation, Wufei leapt into the fray, taking only the barest fraction of a second to assess the situation before tearing through the crowd of goons who had been waiting for them.

The second floor's layout was wide open, with just one door set against the back wall across from where the stairwells opened out. Between the stairs and the door there were roughly twenty men and women in full tactical gear, armed to the teeth, shouting and blinking furiously to clear their vision after Duo's grenade. Duo himself darted through them, throwing the occasional broad, reckless punch as he shoved his way to the door. Wufei followed him doing more systematic, methodical damage. Trowa stood back, picking off people who were about to become problems and harvesting their weapons until he had a small cache of firearms next to a small pile of groaning and unconscious bodies.

Heero dropped from the vents, landing on someone who had just been raising his weapon to attack Duo from behind and causing Wufei, who had been about to take the guy out himself, to pull back abruptly. But there were plenty more to choose from, and Wufei turned quickly to the next fight as Duo kicked the door in. Heero followed Duo through the door, covering him.

The room on the other side was empty, though. Or at least, empty of people.

"Well... shit," Duo said, surveying the machinery that filled the twelve-by-twelve square of a room. Banks of gauges and other measurement instruments curved around in a horseshoe while a dozen screens hovered above, all showing different readings that Duo did not understand. In the middle of the horseshoe was an enormous circular portal. Its frame was made up of gundanium and it was glowing green. The air in the middle of the portal was distorted, making the far wall of the room seem to swim sickeningly.

"That's the diamond!" Quatre exclaimed over the coms. "No, wait, turn back to the portal. There, at the top of the gundanium ring. See it?"

Set directly at the apex of the portal, amidst the twisted metal and wiring, was, in fact, a diamond the size of an acorn.

"How did you even notice that, let alone recognize it?" Duo wondered.

"I still have the news article up, and your personal cameras are cross referencing everything you see against the databases I've accessed. I was trying to trace weapons origins, but it grabbed the diamond too. It's the only thing in the room the computer recognizes. The rest of that machinery is... something else."

"Tell me about it. Well, this should make Wufei happy."

"I'd be happier if you guys would get your lazy asses back here and help out!" Wufei called.

"What's the matter, can't handle twenty criminals on your own?" Duo asked with a grin. Wufei stuck his head in the door.

"They're handled. But now we have to secure them all. Duo, you see if you can start figuring out what's going on in here. Heero, help me zip tie these guys."

Heero nodded and went to help Trowa and Wufei while Duo prowled around the consoles, peering at gauges and readings, then at the information displayed overhead. One of the screens seemed to be nothing more than a calendar. Another one held only a list of random dates. Others showed graphs that fluctuated in time with the distortion of the air around the portal. "Cat, why don't you take the data crap. I'm better with hardware," Duo said, going to take a closer look at the portal itself.

"I'm already analyzing what I could see of the readings through your camera, but I want a closer look. Once Wufei officially calls the mission, I'll be right over."

"Yeah..." Duo agreed, not really paying attention. He was trying to see what the point of the diamond was. Diamonds in tech were common enough, but why _this_ diamond? And why leave it exposed like that? Was it even doing anything, or had it just been set as a frontispiece? He looked around for something to stand on and found a few chairs shoved into a corner. He dragged one over and clambered on top of it. The portal was only about seven feet in diameter so standing on the chair put Duo just about at eye-level with the diamond. He squinted at it, resisting the urge to touch.

"Duo," Quatre's voice crackled over the com. "Your camera just went out. Did you turn it off?"

"Nah, I'm just kind of close to the portal thingy. Probably interference. You know, we should probably cut the power to this thing."

"I'm working on it, but it's looking like we might have to literally cut it – as in, find the mainline to the building and saw through it. I don't suppose you could just unplug the portal?" 

"I don't know, let me – HEY!"

Someone had grabbed the back of Duo's shirt and tugged him sharply from the chair, heaving him to the ground. It happened so quickly, he didn't have time to break his fall. The back of his head cracked against the tile and he was still, providing no response as Quatre shouted over the coms.

Heero was moving as soon as he heard Duo's shout, though, clearing the door just in time to see someone dressed all in black, face shadowed by a fedora, pick up Duo and unceremoniously heave him at the portal.

Duo vanished, but Heero was already sprinting – not at the man who had thrown Duo, but through the portal itself, ignoring the other pilots' shouts. He passed through the portal spare seconds behind Duo. By the time Wufei and Trowa made it to the portal room, no more than ten seconds after Duo's initial shout, it was completely empty.

 

**_CE 2015_ **

"You dove in after me? On _purpose_?" Duo demanded. He hadn't known what had happened after he got knocked out, but he had kind of figured Heero had fallen through the portal as the result of a fight, or something like that. "I know I've asked this before, but I want an answer this time – are you _actually crazy_?"

"Wufei and Trowa were right behind me. I knew they wouldn't need my help catching the guy, so the tactically superior choice was—"

"To dive through a portal blindly?! It could have been a _death_ portal! We could have come out five hundred feet above ground!"

"It was more like three hundred feet, actually," Conan said helpfully.

"What? We – _what_?" Duo sputtered. "Heero?!"

Heero nodded. "Accurate."

"I have never been so glad I was unconscious," Duo said, massaging his forehead. "Why aren't we pancakes right now?"

"KID caught you," Conan said. "And I caught Heero. Well, a giant net did. But look, assuming you're telling the truth—"

"They are. Or at least, _he_ is," Haibara said with a nod at Duo. She had been monitoring his blood pressure, and his pulse, during the whole story. It had only spiked when Heero had started talking. "Or you're very good liars," she added as an afterthought.

"There's an easy way to test this," Conan said. "If there's a portal to the future open three hundred feet above street level in Tokyo, I think someone would notice."

Duo shrugged. "Hey, don't look at me, I don't know what kind of primitive monitoring equipment you guys have in this century."

"Professor?" Conan said.

"Hm?"

"The readings Duo's friend Quatre mentioned. They sound like the anomalies we were measuring just before the heist. Can your equipment verify anything?"

"Oh, well, maybe. If not I think I can definitely work out something that can," Agasa said.

"Well, until then... Haibara can finish her examination, and then we should call it a night. Tomorrow we can all put our heads together – I feel like we're missing something."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Duo said with a yawn. Heero nodded his agreement.

Conan and Agasa watched Haibara finish checking over Duo, neither quite ready to leave her alone with the two newcomers. Her exam determined that Duo's trip through time had produced no immediately discernible damage. She did take a blood sample in order to do a more in-depth analysis later, then turned to Heero to do the same to him.

"Oh, go on, Heero," Duo said when Heero hesitated. "OZ had your blood for a whole year and didn't manage to do anything nefarious with it." He picked absently at the band-aid Haibara had stuck on his arm. "I, for one, would like to know if I'm gonna die horribly of some weird time travel virus. Or smallpox. Do you guys still have smallpox back here?"

"No smallpox," Haibara said as Heero offered his arm with a frown, obviously tense as she efficiently extracted a tiny vial of his blood and stored it in the small lab fridge. "Might want to watch out for measles."

"Nah, we can't catch that. Or most things," Duo said blithely, slinging his arm around Heero's shoulders as Haibara offered him a band-aid for the puncture mark. "Now see? That wasn't so bad." He accepted the band-aid when Heero didn't and stuck it on Heero's arm himself. "If we get back to the present and find the world taken over by a bunch of Heero clones, you can come back and yell at her. Now can we get some sleep?"

"Oh, yes," Agasa said, standing. "There's a spare room upstairs – no beds, I'm afraid, but the couches are comfortable enough. I'll show you. Conan-kun, will you grab some blankets?"

Conan nodded absently, mind still working away at the situation in front of him as he followed Agasa, Heero, and Duo back upstairs. Haibara showed no intention of leaving the lab any time soon.

Conan was silent all the way upstairs, trailing slightly behind and deep in thought. While Agasa took Heero and Duo to their room, Conan walked slowly down the hall toward the closet where the extra blankets were kept, eyes on the floor, hand on his chin. Time travel? That was a hard one to believe, but then, he was an eighteen-year-old in an eight-year-old's body. And the Clubs. Centuries in the future and there was still an organization running around messing with peoples' lives. Was it the same Organization? Would that mean... would he never beat them? Conan's eyebrows contracted and he scowled fiercely at the closet door. No. No, they had absolutely no proof that the Clubs were the Organization, so it was foolish to think like that. But—

"All right, Shinichi?" Professor Agasa asked softly from directly behind him. Conan whirled, startled. How long had he been staring at the closet?

"Uh – yeah, Professor. It's just... a lot to think about."

"You'll figure it out. Oh, here," Agasa said, as though he'd suddenly remembered something. He pulled the diamond out of the pocket of his lab coat and dropped it into Conan's palm. "You shouldn't just leave things like that lying around—" He ruffled Conan's hair and grinned at him. "—tantei-kun."

Conan went cold. "You—"

KID detonated a smoke bomb, leaving Conan coughing in the hallway. The door to the spare room slammed open as Heero and Duo ran out, but they too were stymied by the smoke. Conan ran for the stairs, knowing KID would head up and out, but also knowing that he'd been way too slow. By the time he got to the observatory, and then to the roof, the only sign of KID was a glider silhouette against the moon, not even worth kicking a soccer ball at. He stood there, out of breath and pissed off, for almost a minute before realizing that Professor Agasa was probably tied up in his underwear somewhere.

Conan stomped back down into the house, unconsciously turning the diamond over and over in his hand. The hallway was still a little hazy with smoke, but Conan could clearly see Duo and Heero waiting for him. Duo demanded answers, but Conan ignored him and walked down the hallway back to the linen closet. He grabbed the door handle and let the door swing open.

Sure enough, sitting in the bottom of the closet, sound asleep in his underwear, was Professor Agasa. Conan looked up at Duo and Heero.

"Help me get him to bed. I'll explain all this in the morning," Conan said, suddenly bone tired. Thankfully, though Duo seemed inclined to protest, Heero simply heaved Agasa over his shoulder and followed Conan to his bed, dropping him in it and then tugging Duo back to the spare room by the back of his shirt while Conan settled in for a good, long think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT CONAN'S HINT!  
> "Did you just make a joke about our horrible and scarring past?"


	4. In Which Some People Sleep Better than Others

Heero woke with a mental start. Physically, of course, his pulse and breathing remained exactly as steady as they had when he was sleeping – a habit he had no desire to kick. But he hadn't intended to sleep in the first place and now that he was awake he could tell something was wrong.

His internal clock told him it was still night – or, rather, the part of morning that the sun didn't see. Heero opened his eyes to slits and scanned the parts of the dark room that were in his field of vision without moving his head. A small amount of light from the street filtered in around the curtains, making the other couch and the random mismatched bookcases tucked away in this room seem to loom. It only took Heero a second or two to determine the room was empty, though – and that was the problem. He opened his eyes fully and stood. An old throw blanket he definitely hadn't covered himself in slid to the floor as he did so. The other couch was empty. Duo was gone.

 

Duo smiled to himself as Heero deliberately allowed his steps to fall a little heavier, making sure to make noise as he entered the observatory. Duo was bent over the telescope's eyepiece, where he'd been for the past twenty minutes. He was honestly surprised he'd had that long before Heero came looking.

"We shouldn't let ourselves get separated," Heero said, leaning against the doorframe.

"What, just in case a magic portal opens to whisk us back to the future?" Duo asked. He turned away from the telescope and faced Heero, arms crossed. "That's pretty optimistic."

"We should split up, then?"

"No. _Hell_ no. This world is... scary."

Heero cocked his head. "Duo," he said. "You grew up on the streets of L2. You survived the plague. All the things you saw even _before_ Operation Meteor—"

"There a point to you bringin' up all these lovely memories?"

"The point is that these people can't even begin to imagine the things that we have nightmares about. We have nothing to be afraid of here."

Duo laughed. "You're saying that because the atrocities of modern warfare haven't been invented yet, we're going to be okay? Have you looked outside? Everything's fueled with dead dinosaurs still! The pollution's so bad you can't even see the stars. We're _trapped_ , Heero. Trapped on Earth, trapped in this century. I don't know if I can handle it."

Heero's brow creased and he brushed past Duo, heading for the bank of computers connected to the telescope. They were there for calibration, but they also had an internet connection. It took Heero a few clicks to figure out which program would let him access it, but once in, it was pretty straightforward.

"What are you doing?" Duo asked, exasperated.

"It's CE 2015, right?" Heero said.

"Yeah. Fuckin' stone age."

"Hn." Heero straightened, allowing Duo to see the screen. It was filled with images of a sight Duo had seen hundreds of times first-hand: the blue sphere of Earth curving away into space. But in the foreground of each picture there was what looked like an enormous satellite. Heero gave the mouse a twitch and the page scrolled to show images of people in the satellite, sometimes holding flags from their country of origin, sometimes just floating around in low-g. "The International Space Station," Heero said. "The longest continual human occupation of space, so far. It'll be up there for years – decades. This is where it really starts: human life in space."

"Why do you _know_ that?" Duo asked, partially to cover up how much the pictures made his heart feel like it was expanding and plummeting at the same time.

Heero shrugged. "It was important to Dr. J that I understand the mentality of the colonists and the Earth Sphere. This was a good place to start." Heero scrolled absently, musing. "In a decade or so, Russia will make a move toward an independent station. The United States will respond. Things will be tense. Something all the inhabitants of the space station will say when they come back, though, is how easy it was to work together and what a success the project was – and there will be many comments about how the politics of Earth just get in the way."

"Okay, that was actually pretty inspiring until that last part," Duo said, frowning. "It's the same sentiments that lead to tension between Earth and the colonies in our time, just, you know, in miniature. And the space station isn't armed."

"Yet."

" _What_?"

"Never mind. The point is, we're not so far away from where we came from. What's a couple of centuries to outer space?" Heero allowed himself a tiny half smile. "Plus, you can't count out Quatre."

"Ha! No, no I can't," Duo said with a shake of his head. "If it's a question of getting us all together and in one piece, that guy could probably do it through sheer force of will."

"Add to that the fact that we have no reason to believe the portal isn't still open above the city, and I'd say that the odds of completing this mission successfully are high. Or," Heero amended. "High for us."

"Was that a joke? Did you just make a joke about our horrible and scarring past?" Duo grinned. "It must be late. Come on, I'm sorry I got all mopey. Let's go back to bed. Or couch. Things always look better in the morning."

Heero nodded and the two returned to the spare room. Duo stumbled to his sofa in the dark and stretched out on his stomach, burying his face in a throw pillow. Heero did not lie down, but perched on the back of the couch, feet on the cushions, keeping watch. It was minutes later, when he'd been certain Duo was asleep, that the other pilot's pillow-muddled voice floated out of the darkness.

"Hey Heero?"

"Hn."

"You really get nightmares?"

"... ...yes."

"Me too."

"I know."

The sound of air pushing through the vents filled the silence for a little while. Then,

"I'm glad you jumped into a death portal for me."

"Go to sleep, Duo."

"Uh huh." A massive yawn. "'M sleep. Night."

Heero remained where he was long after Duo truly drifted off. He watched in the dark, until the dark began to lighten. And if the dark had been watching him back – say, with a pair of infrared cameras cleverly concealed in a bookcase – it would have seen him eventually cross the room to Duo, drop a blanket over his shoulders, and then settle on the floor with his back against Duo's couch, within arm's reach. What the expression that crossed Heero's face in those moments was, though, not even the dark could tell.

But it could make an educated guess.

 

Downstairs, Professor Agasa yawned and stretched. Then he noticed that he was in bed, and not wearing pajamas. Also, it was four AM. And Conan was asleep in an armchair. Agasa shrugged and went back to sleep.

 

Further downstairs, Haibara had completely lost track of time. But she was starting to think it was probably time for bed, because the little red spot on the slide under the microscope was telling her things that were rather difficult to believe, regardless of the story she'd heard earlier that night. She pushed back from the microscope and stretched, then sat staring at the ceiling for a little while. Finally, she collected the slide, both blood samples she'd taken from their mysterious visitors, and all of her notes (saved only on a thumb drive) and tucked them behind a false panel in the wall. She let the lab door swing closed behind her. It locked automatically and, on her way upstairs past a sleeping Conan and Agasa, Haibara "accidentally" dropped Agasa's set of keys – which had been hanging on a hook in plain sight – into a houseplant.

Satisfied that anyone who wanted to go in the lab would have to ask her to unlock it or else pick the lock themselves thus revealing nefarious intent, Haibara went to sleep. Tomorrow she would confirm her findings – and confront Heero.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's about as fluffy as I get, folks.
> 
> These past two chapters have been a little Gundam-heavy haven't they? Next week will have more of our DCMK heroes - and also it will be a lengthier update, full of Action and Plot :)
> 
> NEXT CONAN'S HINT!  
> "Look," Sonoko hissed. "I know you're KID."


	5. In Which Conan Dresses Heero in Strategically Tight Jeans and Science is Accomplished

Breakfast the following morning was a subdued affair, as it seemed no one had gotten a particularly good night's sleep. Haibara didn't even put in an appearance. After filling Duo and Heero in on KID's general modus operandi to explain the previous night's shenanigans, Conan laid out his plan for verifying the Gundam pilots' story. It was simple: they would take the diamond back to Jirokichi and ask him to let them use his building as a base of operations, since it was very close to where the hypothetical portal would be. There they'd fire up the same equipment Agasa had been using and confirm the portal's existence.

"Heero will have to make the request," Conan said. "I've already introduced him as a detective interested in pursuing KID. If we say it's KID research – trying to recreate the heist or something – and promise to share our findings, it'll be pretty much impossible for him to turn us down."

Duo raised his eyebrows and looked Heero up and down. "He's supposed to be a detective? Doesn't look much like one."

Conan blinked and looked at Heero, realizing for the first time that both he and Duo (and himself, come to think of it) had slept in their clothes. They were definitely wrinkled and Duo's braid was looking decidedly fuzzy.

"Right..." he mused. "I guess you didn't bring a change of clothes from the future."

Heero shrugged. "It doesn't matter to me."

"No, Duo's right," Conan said, thinking about it. He eyed Duo. "You can probably fit into m-uh... Shinichi-niichan's clothes, but Heero..." Heero Yuy was five-foot-one. While all the other pilots had had a couple of inches of growth left in them after the war, Heero had just stopped. He still looked fifteen and Duo took a certain amount of mischievous delight in offering to get things off of high shelves for him. "Well, we can cuff some jeans and call it hipster," Conan said. "Come on. We'll get you a change of clothes and then go see Ran-neechan about getting this diamond back to Sonoko-neechan's uncle."

He swung himself off his stool and headed for the front door. Heero followed without a word, trailed by Duo, who had snagged several slices of bacon and was eating them as he walked.

"Thanks for breakfast, Prof!" he called as the door swung shut behind them and Professor Agasa waved cheerfully as he devoured the rest of the bacon and began hiding the evidence from Haibara.

About fifteen minutes later, Haibara emerged, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She poured herself a cup of coffee, considered it, then left the cup on the counter for Professor Agasa and took the pot with her to the basement. Agasa watched her go, then decided it was time to give an old friend a call.

"Oh, Konosuke-kun? It's Agasa. Yes, it looks like I need to postpone this month's mahjong night ... No, nothing serious. Just kids, you know how it is ... Oh, I imagine you'll hear all about it yourself, but I'll give you the details next month ... All right, you take care ... Bye." Agasa hung up, picked up Haibara's abandoned cup of coffee, and settled in to read the newspaper with a soft sigh of contentment.

 

Two hours later, Haibara came back upstairs with a thoughtful, if slightly caffeinated, look on her face. "Where's Kudo-kun?" she asked.

"He went with Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Yuy to see Ran-kun and Sonoko-kun about returning the diamond," Agasa answered. Haibara frowned and pulled out her cell phone, wandering over to the windows as she dialed and waited for Conan to pick up.

"Hi, Haibara," Conan's voice sounded young and cheerful. He was with other people, then.

"Do we need to have another discussion about recklessness, Edogawa-kun?"

"Uhhh... what do you mean?"

Haibara couldn't tell if he was faking innocence, but she didn't much care. "I mean, you have no reason to trust those guys. It's one thing going off on your own with them, and another thing completely to expose Ran-san to potential danger."

Conan flinched "Well... um." He glanced over his shoulder at where Heero, Duo, Sonoko, and Ran were sitting at an outdoor table at a little pizza place eating lunch, out of earshot. Duo had fit well enough into a plain black t-shirt and jeans of Shinichi's, and Conan had dug out some of his older clothes for Heero, who was looking downright normal in a beat-up green hoodie and a pair of jeans that were probably not meant for legs with quite that much muscle, but oh well, at least they weren't dragging on the ground. As an added bonus, Conan was absolutely certain he wouldn't be able to hide a gun in those jeans and he had made sure Heero left his pilfered firearm behind.

Ran, of course, had been eager to talk with Heero more to try to get a bead on Shinichi (Conan had debriefed Heero on the basics – not including the fact that Shinichi was currently Conan-shaped – before they met, and Heero's reticence and Ran's politeness were combining to make this much less stressful than it could have been), and Sonoko and Duo had hit it off right away. Duo was currently trying to convince both women that pizza was eaten crust-first in America and they were having an excellent time trying to prove him wrong with examples from movies – which of course Duo had not seen, though that didn't stop him from countering with increasingly outlandish excuses and tales of an American conspiracy to convince the rest of the world to eat pizza the wrong way.

It was hard to believe any of them were in danger. Besides... would KID, who was an expert in reading people, really have left Duo in Professor Agasa's _home_ if he was dangerous? Though honestly, it was a little worrying how much that thought seemed to have factored in to Conan's decision to trust these guys at least long enough to check their story.

"And by the way, I think you put a little too much faith in Kaito KID's good character," Haibara went on. Conan scowled. Sometimes she was downright disconcerting.

"It'll be fine. We're on our way to meet Sonoko's uncle and give him the diamond back. He's going to let us set up the monitoring equipment again – it's all still at his building anyway from the heist – and as soon as we do that, we'll see how much truth there is to their story. We'll know in a couple of hours, tops. And we'll be in crowded, public places all the way until we're in the old man's building, and he has plenty of security. There's nothing to worry about."

"Okay, but do me a favor: keep a close eye on the short one in particular."

"Eh? How come?"

"I need a bigger blood sample before I say anything. Just make sure he comes back with you."

"So... if there is actually a portal to the future in the sky, don't let him go through it?"

Haibara was quiet for a few moments. "...Edogawa-kun. You actually believe you'll find one?"

Conan flushed. "Why would they make up something like that?"

"Sometimes I forget how young you actually are."

"Haibara..."

"Never mind. Be careful." She hung up.

Conan blinked at his phone. What the hell. Blood? He looked over at Heero, who was very solemnly eating a piece of pizza backward, not seeming to notice Sonoko taking a picture and tweeting it. Conan put on a smile and went back to his own seat, prepared with a story about Haibara having a homework question. If Heero and Duo really did have some nefarious ulterior motive, he'd figure it out. And then he'd deal with it like he usually did.

 

As predicted, Jirokichi was more than happy to help with Heero's "KID research" – especially after being reassured of Heero's complete disinterest in anything remotely resembling media attention. Duo was introduced as Heero's assistant and basically kept Jirokichi distracted describing how they'd "recovered" the diamond in great detail – and then asking to hear all of Jirokichi's exploits with KID, carefully praising Jirokichi's planning and cleverness while teasing out even more details about the still relatively-unknown quantity that was KID.

They decided to set up the equipment on the roof to cut down background interference as much as possible. Eventually, seeing that the science happening on his roof was not the flashy sort, Jirokichi went back inside to make sure the diamond was put back in its case where it belonged. Their equipment was essentially just a series of different types of scanners – infrared, radar, EMF, and several others – providing steady readouts. Conan had the data from the fluctuations they'd been monitoring just before the heist so that they could compare.

Duo kept glancing out over the city toward where everyone said he and Heero had appeared out of nowhere. It looked distressingly normal. There was no shimmer in the air. No bird suddenly vanished mid-flight. In fact, the city itself looked surprisingly normal, as well. If it weren't for the smell, Duo thought, this could almost be AC 198. What were the other pilots doing in the future, anyway? It had been almost two days for Heero and Duo – was time moving the same for Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei? How could the future be happening at the same time as the past?

"Urrrrgh I hate time travel," Duo muttered, digging the heel of his hand into his forehead.

"Me too," Sonoko said. Duo started. He hadn't realized she was standing so close. "I mean, it's either way overpowered as a plot device, or it introduces so many paradoxes you can't enjoy the plot. What movie were you thinking of?"

"Uh... all of 'em, really!" Duo said with a laugh. Sonoko gave him a calculating look, then glanced over at Ran, Heero, and Conan, who were arguing over a particular connection.

"Look," Sonoko hissed. "I know you're KID."

" _What?!_ Lady, I—"

"It's okay! I can be discreet," she said with an exaggerated wink. "If you need any help, you know you can count on me!"

Duo's eyes widened at her determined expression and he took a step back. "O...kay... but... I'm not KID. And anyway, aren't you supposed to be on your uncle's side?"

"Say no more! I've got your back!" she said, and sidled back over to Ran with another wink. Duo watched her go, slightly poleaxed, then noticed that Heero was watching _him_. Duo lifted his hands in an exaggerated shrug and Heero went back to tracing cables without changing expression.

 

When all was said and done, though, there was nothing unusual about the patch of sky that had spit out two Gundam pilots two days ago. Since Ran and Sonoko were still around, Conan was pretending that Heero was showing him the negative results, though in reality it was Conan giving them the bad news.

"Whatever was happening the night of the heist... it isn't happening now."

"Do you think maybe KID really did have something to do with it?" Duo asked in an undertone. Conan shrugged.

"I doubt it... nothing he did that night should have generated any of the weird frequencies we were reading. It was all your standard misdirections and illusions. He didn't use anything more high-tech than usual. Unless I missed something." His tone made it clear that he had not missed anything.

"Yeah, okay. Hey," Duo glanced over at Ran and Sonoko. They were standing near the edge of the roof and Ran was pointing out constellations to Sonoko, while Heero, Duo, and Conan were clustered around one of the scanners near the middle of the roof. "Your friend Sonoko is totally rooting for your nemesis," he said quietly.

"Oh, yeah. She has a crush on KID," Conan said, completely unconcerned.

" _Really_ ," Duo said, looking back over at the two women. Sonoko was pointing at the sky now and whispering something in Ran's ear. Ran was giggling.

"Well, yeah. It's not all that hard to see. He's incredibly charismatic, plus there's that whole silhouette against the moon, giving truth to illusion, mystery personified thing—"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, he's dreamy, I just figured—" He looked up again. Ran was blushing furiously now and Sonoko was cackling evilly. Maybe she liked variety. He looked back down at Conan. Or maybe someone was projecting. "Ah, never mind. It's none of my business," Duo said. Dealing with a kid's first crush was definitely _not_ in any of his training, especially when that crush was twice the kid's age and also his sworn enemy or something. They'd need Quatre for this one. Or maybe Wufei.

"Hey." Heero, who had been completely ignoring their conversation, was pointing at the EMF reader. It was registering a tiny amount of activity.

"That's gotta be background noise," Conan said, comparing the charts from two days ago. "It's too weak."

"Is this directional?" Heero asked.

"No. But this one is," Conan said, checking the screen of one of the other scanners. "Huh. It's got something too. Coming from... below us?"

"You think it _moved_?" Duo asked.

"One way to find out," Conan said. "Here's a portable reader. Let's check it out,"

"Hold on!" Ran called before Conan could get two steps to the door. "It's a school night, Conan. Let's leave this to Detective Yuy. You can come back after school and help him if he says it's okay."

"Oh – can I, Heero-niichan?" Conan asked, turning huge eyes on Heero. Duo about lost it.

"...yes," Heero said.

"What he means is, we'd be thrilled to have your help tomorrow, kid. If we're still in the country. Heero can get called away pretty quick if an urgent case comes up," Duo warned.

"I understand. Good luck, Detective!" Conan said. If he was at all concerned that Duo and Heero were about to walk through a portal into the future without him ever confirming its existence, Duo couldn't tell. Ran bowed politely to Duo and Heero and she, Sonoko, and Conan left the roof, headed home. Duo waited until the roof door clicked closed before bursting into laughter.

"Oh man, that kid's a riot. I might actually miss him."

"He's hiding something," Heero said, fiddling with the handheld scanner Conan had picked up before leaving.

"What?"

"School? For a kid like him? And why does he hide how smart he is from the people he lives with? For that matter, why doesn't he live with the professor who's training him? Something doesn't add up."

"Geez, Heero, lighten up. It's a different time. We don't have the context to figure something like this out. Now do you have a reading on our portal or not?"

"Hn," Heero replied. Duo recognized it as one of his "affirmative" vocalizations and grinned.

"Let's get going then!"

They took to the stairs, watching the needle click more wildly as they descended. It took a while; Heero insisted on a cursory check of each floor to make sure they didn't miss anything. Finally, over an hour later, they traced the source of the fluctuations to the fourteenth floor, which proved to be given over entirely to an enormous gallery. Oil paintings lined three walls, lit softly from above, while glass cases of various sizes containing gems and artifacts were scattered throughout the large open area. The fourth wall was made entirely of windows and looked out over Tokyo. The marble floor gleamed. A lone security guard eyed them carefully, but didn't move from his post near the elevators that most people would use to access the gallery when it was open. Jirokichi had cleared Duo and Heero with his entire security force before they'd even entered the building so they could go wherever they wanted, but being watching by someone in uniform still gave Duo a creepy feeling across his shoulders.

He wandered over to a cluster of glass cases while Heero swept the room. The cases were filled with various bits of jewelry, and Duo realized that each piece was also being worn by one of the subjects of the paintings on the walls.

"Duo," Heero said. He was holding the reader above a small, square case set on a pedestal against the back wall. Duo looked over his shoulder.

"You are shitting me. What the hell is with this thing!"

The case held the diamond that, by now, was quite familiar to Duo. It sparkled brilliantly under the case's interior lighting, nestled securely on a blue velvet cushion. The burnished plaque on the front of the case read "Mischief's Malice."

Heero was waving his hand over the case, then around it, but there didn't seem to be anything unusual happening.

"We were carrying this around all day. Hell, it's been on or near me since I dropped into this century..." Duo trailed off, thoughtful.

"Almost like the portal was homing in on it," Conan said.

"Gah! Where the hell did you come from?!" Duo demanded, astonished to find the kid suddenly popping up between him and Heero.

"Like I'm gonna miss this for school? I snuck out. Now, think about it – when you fell out of the sky, you landed _right_ on KID, who was carrying the diamond. Heero-niichan appeared a second later in almost the same spot – but the diamond was moving pretty fast. Maybe the portal didn't have time to adjust?"

"Then where was it the entire time we were carrying the diamond around?" Heero asked. Conan shook his head.

"Too many unknowns. I can't even begin to hypothesize about something that was built centuries in the future out of materials that haven't even been discovered yet. We need more data."

Duo sighed. "Let me guess: we're going to have to move all of that equipment on the roof down here. Can someone explain to me why the actual mad scientist you live with isn't here for this?"

"He can't find his keys. Now, come on. I bet the old man's nice security people would be willing to help us move the equipment." Conan said, smiling sweetly at the officer by the elevators.

 

Two hours later, everything was moved and set up once more, the security guard had been relieved by a generous coworker who had _not_ just spent two hours hauling equipment around, and Conan was arguing with Professor Agasa via web conference on a laptop. They had moved the diamond, put it back, poked and prodded it, and taken approximately five million measurements. But nothing was as helpful as the shoe that almost hit Duo in the face.

Duo had been attaching electrodes to the glass of the case when Heero's hand shot out and caught the shoe inches from Duo's nose.

"What the... who's throwing _shoes_?!" Duo demanded, looking around. But there was just Heero, Conan sitting cross-legged in front of his laptop, and the (now wide-eyed) security guard at the elevators. All of them still had both shoes.

"This is a military grade combat boot," Heero said, examining it. "Our enemies were wearing them at the Clubs' complex in AC 198."

Duo's eyes scanned the air above the case, hoping for a portal. "Hit the security footage," he told Conan. Conan nodded and shrunk Agasa's window so he could replay the last minute from the security feed. Heero and Duo watched over his shoulders as the boot appeared out of nowhere above the case. He froze the video at the exact moment and even managed to catch the boot half materialized, as though part of it had been cut off. Duo ran over to the exact spot the video showed and thrust an arm out, but it didn't vanish. The space above the case was completely normal.

Conan frowned, took the boot from Heero, and threw it with impressive accuracy at the exact spot it had come from.

It hit the oil painting of a grey-haired countess and her poodle hanging on the wall behind the case.

"I don't get it," Duo said.

"It's like the portal only existed when something was coming through it," Conan mused.

"Like it's a one-way portal," Heero said grimly.

"Who the hell builds a one-way portal to the _past_?" Duo demanded, refusing to believe it.

"Maybe it wasn't finished," Heero said.

"Someone who's trying to escape something," Conan said at the same time.

"Would you both _please_ stop being so goddamned _logical_?" Duo shouted.

Heero and Conan looked at each other, then back at the slightly panicky Duo, both at a loss.

"Um... why did someone just throw a combat boot through a one-way portal to the past?" the security guard asked meekly. Three heads turned to look at him.

"That... is an excellent question," Conan said, eyes narrowing. Uncannily, it was answered a moment later by a loud thud as a bottle of water landed on the case. It was followed almost instantly by a second one. "Move the diamond!" Conan said. "This is our chance to see if the portal moves with it."

Heero and Duo grabbed the entire pedestal and dragged it to the other side of the gallery, near the windows while Conan picked up the water bottles. There was a note wrapped around one of them. "I think this is for you guys," he said after glancing at it. Duo took it curiously and read it aloud.

"Sorry about the shoe – Wufei got impatient. Since nothing exploded, we decided to send through something more practical. Wherever you are, hope you're safe. More provisions to follow. We're running tests to see if it's safe to send living things through – hopefully you're living proof that it is, but we have no way of knowing. Stay safe. Quatre." Duo grinned. "He's still trying to take care of us from a couple centuries away."

"Can I see that again?" Conan asked. Duo handed the note over. "Huh. This is Japanese, right?"

"Yeah..."

"This is fascinating. I can just about read it, since I know what it says now. The linguistic shifts seem believable... this would be very difficult to fake."

"You still think we're faking?!" Duo burst out.

"Well—"

But whatever Conan was about to say, it was lost in a great shattering of glass as the wall of windows suddenly burst inward. Heero tackled Duo to the ground to shield him from falling shards and the security guard, moving surprisingly fast, threw himself on top of Conan. Three men, all brandishing guns, dropped into the room from rappelling lines.

"The diamond!" Conan yelled, squirming out from under the guard. He froze as he caught a clear glimpse of the men, though.

The one in the middle had long silvery blond hair. He was flanked by two brunettes, one with a prodigious horseshoe mustache. All were wearing black trench coats and fedoras. Gin, Vodka, and the jewel thief Conan knew as Jackal. Conan let out a slightly feral growl and went pelting headfirst toward them – no _way_ they were getting away again – but was brought up short by a hand on the back of his shirt.

"Wait a moment, tantei-kun. And stay low." With that, the "security guard" leapt into the air and dropped a smoke bomb. The three Organization members immediately opened fire at the spot in the air where KID had been a moment before while Conan ducked and covered, hoping Heero and Duo were doing the same.

"Stop! We're not hitting anything. Listen!" shouted Gin. The gunfire ceased as all three tried to use their ears to locate KID in the thick smoke, which was dissipating rapidly due to the shattered windows. They didn't see Duo's silhouette creeping up on them from behind until it was too late, though. A fist flew out of the smoke and Vodka was down. Jackal - known to KID as Snake - whirled and fired at Duo, who barely dove out of the way in time.

The smoke was finally thin enough for Conan to see through. He flipped open his watch and aimed it at Gin. There was a thin hydraulic _hiss_ and the anesthetic needle was flying through the air, exactly on target... until Gin stepped aside to assist Snake, who had just been tackled by Heero. The needle whizzed harmlessly into the night, causing Conan to say some rather adult words. Gin turned, noticing him for the first time and seemed first surprised, then delighted to see a kid there. Glancing back to where Heero had easily bent Snake's arm up behind his back – one-handed – and Duo was wrestling with a recovering Vodka for control of his gun, Gin turned and strode toward Conan with purpose.

"Gentlemen!" Kaito KID appeared atop Mischief's Malice's case in a tiny puff of smoke and all eyes turned to him. "All this fuss over such a small prize?" The diamond appeared between the fingers of his upraised hand, danced across his knuckles, and vanished. "There! Now we have no quarrel."

Gin just smirked and raised his gun, pointing it at Conan without looking away from KID. KID's smile faded imperceptibly, growing a little hard around the eyes as he scanned his brain for tricks that would get Conan out from under the gun without getting him shot.

A backpack full of food and water flying through the air out of nowhere and hitting Gin in the face was not one of the things he considered, but he'd take it. As Gin flailed in surprise, KID swooped in to swipe the gun out of his hand. Unfortunately, Conan had the same idea, or a similar one, and ran for Gin at the same time. The two collided and went sprawling into Gin. The whole group toppled over, and while the gun _did_ go skittering across the floor, the situation was hardly ideal.

Heero had taken Snake's gun and cold-cocked him. The man was now sprawled out on the ground while Heero took aim at the tangle of limbs that was Conan, Gin, and KID. Somewhere behind him he could hear Duo swearing as he grappled with Vodka, but he knew Duo could take care of himself. These other two, though...

KID's cape had fouled Gin's limbs, but it was also preventing Conan from scrambling clear of the mess. KID was trying to prevent both himself and Gin from squashing the kid, while Gin was doing his level best to keep KID where he was but also slither toward his gun, which was just a few feet away. Heero rolled his eyes and retrieved the weapon himself since there was no way he was getting a clear shot at that tangle of arms and legs. Near the former windows, Duo finally had Vodka face-down on the ground and was sitting on his back. Vodka's gun was nowhere in sight.

That was when someone – possibly it was a tiny sneaker randomly flailing, maybe a lucky punch, perhaps sheer accident – detonated a handful of the tricks KID kept about his person. There was a series of sharp retorts, a flash, and then a thick outpouring of smoke. There were a few scuffling sounds, a startled yelp, and then two figures were jumping apart as the last shreds of smoke dissipated in the rising wind from the demolished windows.

Gin had jumped toward the windows, KID in the opposite direction. But now Gin was holding a thrashing Conan under his arm and had backed up to the very edge of the floor. Heero aimed, squinting due to the wind now whipping around the gallery. Then he realized that the increasing winds were accompanied by the rapid _WHUPWHUPWHUP_ of helicopter blades. Based on Gin's grin, Heero didn't think it was the police coming to investigate the explosion.

"Shoot me and the kid falls with me!" Gin shouted over the noise, his heels practically hanging over the edge where the floor had once met the windows. Heero slowly lowered the gun. Next to him, he noted KID tensing, preparing to run.

Then the helicopter lowered into sight. It looked like a modified military job, open-sided and jet black. It was lining itself up with the building. Five people dressed in black tactical gear and helmets with mirrored visors jumped from the chopper into the gallery, wielding semi-automatic assault rifles; two gathered up Snake, who was just coming to, and attached a safety line to him so he could be reeled back into the chopper, which was keeping its distance from the building. The others approached Duo and Vodka threateningly. Duo scowled and stood from where he'd still been perched on Vodka's back, raising his hands in the air and backing toward Heero and KID. Vodka looked like he might like to go after Duo, but settled for flipping him off and attaching his own safety line in preparation for being pulled back into the copter. One of the newcomers discreetly attached a line to Gin's belt as well.

"Good. We'll take that diamond, next," Gin said.

"Don't!" Conan yelled. Gin shook him hard enough that he almost bit his tongue. KID's eyes flicked to Heero, then the helicopter. Heero nodded almost imperceptibly.

"If you wanted that diamond you should have stolen it fair and square, like I did," KID said. Gin's smirk didn't falter.

"How about you take a few days to think it over? Say, ten? One for each toe." With that he turned and leapt with the rest of the organization members across the gap between the helicopter and the building, even as the helicopter peeled away. Operators in the chopper began reeling them in, Conan now clutching his captor's arm, eyes even wider than usual.

Heero was already moving, sprinting through broken glass then flying out the window at top speed. He caught one of the landing skids by his fingertips, but it was enough. He brought his other hand up, consolidated his grip, then shinnied up the skid toward the opening, completely ignoring the inaccurate rain of bullets surrounding him. They couldn't seriously aim; they'd hit the chopper.

The helicopter dipped and swerved, trying to throw him off, but he barely noticed. They couldn't do too much of that, either, for fear of flinging out the passengers. Heero swung himself into the cabin feet first, taking out the person unlucky enough to be closest to the door.

Apparently close-quarters combat wasn't a specialty of most Organization members, and Heero took out two more with vicious kicks as they struggled to get themselves sorted out. Then he went straight for Gin, throwing an elbow in his face and snatching Conan out of his grip before he really realized what was happening. With Conan in his hands and Gin reaching to haul him back, Heero spun – and let go, flinging Conan right out of the helicopter.

KID caught him before he could even get the breath to scream, glider rocking crazily in the wind from the helicopter. Heero took a running leap out of the chopper himself – but his dive was arrested abruptly as Gin caught his ankle just before it cleared the door. Gravity quickly took over his momentum and he swung downward, but Gin kept his grip and hauled him back into the cabin where Vodka and the rest of the team piled on to him.

"Crap. Go back!" Conan shouted above the rush of the wind, craning over KID's shoulder to see what had happened. KID had one arm around his waist and was trying to steer with just one hand. Conan didn't realize it, but he had KID's tie in a deathgrip, with his other hand clutching the lapel of his jacket.

KID grimaced and tried to steer the glider back into the gusty airspace near the chopper, but the Organization opened fire. It wasn't long before a bullet found its way through the glider's fabric. Steering, already near impossible, became more like hanging on for dear life. KID shook his head and peeled away, heading back for the gallery like a drunken kite.

"Damn it," Conan muttered.

"There's no way we can get to him like this," KID said, slightly defensive.

"I know. It's not your fault. No, wait, actually, this _might_ be all your fault. What's your interest in this diamond? You already returned it, so why are you hanging around?" Conan demanded.

"Do you want to save the interrogation for when I'm not juggling both you and a damaged hang glider several hundred feet above the ground, Meitantei?" KID asked dryly.

"Not really."

"Too bad." They were back at Jirokichi's building, the gallery level easily visible due to its missing windows and the tiny figure of Duo standing there with his mouth hanging open and his hands buried in his hair, having just witnessed two people take flying leaps from the building. Below, the streets were an electric knot of sirens and news media.

KID closed in on the gallery quickly and nearly bowled Duo over landing. He knelt and deposited Conan on solid ground, at which point the kid realized how tightly he'd been holding on. He made his fingers relax their grip and KID sighed at the wrinkled silk of the tie.

"Where's Heero?" Duo asked, though from the slightly sick look on his face it seemed he had a pretty good idea.

"Alive," Conan said hurriedly. "But they got him. They'll probably try to trade him for the diamond now."

"All right, then how do we give it to them?"

Both Conan and KID looked surprised.

"You'd give them the only lead you have on getting back home?" KID asked.

"Well I'm sure as hell not going back without Heero, so might as well if that's what it takes."

But Conan was already shaking his head. "Absolutely not. Putting anything that even _hints_ at something like time travel into the Organization's hands is out of the question. You might be willing to sacrifice your shot at going home, but I'm not going to let you sacrifice the whole world, too!"

"What makes you think you can stop me, half-pint?"

"A- _hem_." KID cleared his throat rather pointedly. Duo and Conan both glared at him. He smiled sweetly back. "As neither of you is actually in possession of the gem in question, your argument is somewhat moot."

"This isn't a game, KID," Conan said coldly. To his surprise, KID actually looked a little offended.

"I know that, Ku– uh– Conan-kun." The slip-up, which very possibly had not been an actual slip-up, served to remind Conan about certain other things that KID knew. In fact, if he had been paying attention to Conan's reactions, KID had probably put together that these people were the ones responsible for Conan/Shinichi's current predicament. Now the question was just: how was KID associated with them? Conan had definitely thought Jackal was just a jewel thief in competition with KID, but for him to show up with Gin and Vodka... Conan's eyes slid over to Duo, then back to KID. That would have to wait.

"Well then, what do you propose?" Conan asked, thinking he was probably going to regret it.

"Simple. We rescue him."

"Great, good plan, all for it. Just one thing. How the hell do we _find_ them?" Duo asked.

KID cast his eyes to the heavens. "Oh, if only we had a detective to help us!"

"Shut up," Conan muttered, but his hand was already on his chin, his eyes distant. He was quiet long enough for Duo to start getting antsy again, but then, "Skids."

Duo and KID looked at each other, both clueless. Conan was nodding, though, coming to conclusions.

"Military helicopters usually have wheels, not skids. Maybe they were trying to make it lighter, but I think..." Conan checked his memory. "Yeah – floats. They had floats attached. That, with the size of the fuel tank...  the bay. Probably the east bay, maybe a bit south... We need a map."

"We need to _go_ ," Duo said.

"I get that you're impatient, but—"

"No, I mean we need to go, _now_ ," Duo repeated. He was looking down the side of the building at a sea of police streaming in. Apparently the structure had been deemed safe enough to send personnel in. "Unless you want to spend the next several hours tied up in red tape."

Conan winced. Jirokichi had given Heero and Duo permission to be here, but Heero was supposed to be the official detective, and he was gone. Conan was supposed to be at home asleep, and KID was... KID. It would be irresponsible to just take off without reporting the events of the evening (in some form or another), but Duo, as the only person who was actually supposed to be there, would have to do it and Conan didn't want to leave him on his own with a bunch of twenty-first century police. He gave KID an appraising glance.

"Hey..." Conan started. KID was already nodding.

"Yeah, I got it. You make yourself scarce unless you want to end up on the morning news. And in trouble with Ran."

Conan nodded, once. "Right. I'd better start laying the groundwork for a sick day tomorrow as soon as possible anyway. Regroup at Agasa's?"

KID grinned. "I'll let myself in."

Conan rolled his eyes and took off, heading for the stairs. It would take some quick moving to get out unnoticed, but he could manage.

"Uh... what just happened?" Duo asked. KID was removing his hat and cape.

"Watch and be amazed, Mr. Priest. Oh, and don't stand too close when the cops get here; it'll make it harder for them to spot the height difference."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, the plot decided to put in an appearance. How nice. This is your friendly reminder to mind the tags going forward, keep your hands and arms inside the fic at all times, and let your author know if you experience any dizziness, bouts of hysteria, or uncontrollable weeping. Have fun!
> 
> NEXT CONAN'S HINT!  
> "When it's just us, you can call me Kaito."


	6. In Which We Earn Our M Rating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *points at chapter title*
> 
> *points at tags*
> 
> Okay? Okay. Proceed.

Things were going well for Heero in the helicopter, comparatively speaking. It was not, for example, as bad as the time he'd blown up Wing and gone catatonic for a month. Nor was it as bad as the time he had mistakenly destroyed a shuttle full of diplomats advocating for peace. On the other hand, it was considerably worse than the time he'd leapt several storeys out of a hospital without opening his parachute; at least then he'd been escaping. It was also probably worse than the first few times he'd attempted to master the Zero system; at least then he'd had a weapon in his hands. Now the only weapon within reach was the butt of a rifle heading for his temple.

It connected with a sharp crack and Heero's eyes went glassy and unfocused. The three people holding him back let go and he fell to the floor of the helicopter. They probably expected him to be unconscious after that hit, and Heero had no problem letting them believe that, simply lying still with his eyes wide and staring while his brain tried to unscramble itself.

"Jesus, what is this kid made of?" one of the operatives wondered aloud.

"Did you see that jump? It must've been twenty feet. No one can jump that far," said another.

Gin smirked down at Heero. "I think this one will have a lot to tell us before we trade him for that diamond." He knelt and grabbed Heero by the hair, tilting his face to get a closer look at him. "Hell, with him we might not even need the diamond after all. Wait—" Gin squinted. "Fuck. He's still _awake_." He dropped Heero's head back to the floor and Heero tensed himself to move, no matter how much it hurt. But then the rifle came down again and everything finally went dark.

 

*

 

Commotion in the living room woke Haibara around one AM that morning. She crept down the stairs, alert for any hint that something had gone wrong. She was relieved to see Heero sitting there, with Duo and Professor Agasa; at least Conan hadn't let him get away.

Except...

Heero was making faces at Duo, apparently trying to get him to laugh. Duo's arms were crossed, his face stony. Professor Agasa was making tea, to all appearances unconcerned, though he didn't even smile as Heero crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue at Duo.

"All right, who the hell are you?" Haibara demanded, jumping the last two steps and running into the room. She was wearing pink pajamas dotted with flying hippos, but she also had a taser clipped to the back of her pants because of _course_ she had grabbed a weapon after being awoken in the middle of the night by a commotion in the living room. She hadn't pulled it yet because it was possible Heero had just been drugged or something and she didn't want to end up shot.

Heero looked over to her and grinned, and Haibara knew – even without Duo grinding out "He's that shady-ass KID guy," and completely ruining whatever introduction KID had been about to give himself. KID cast an annoyed look in Duo's direction, then leaned back easily, hands behind his head.

"Guilty."

"Why are you wearing Heero-kun's face?" Haibara asked, fingers itching to grab the taser. But if Duo already knew, and Professor Agasa didn't seem surprised either, then somehow KID was _supposed_ to be here and she probably couldn't justify electrocuting him.

"Because Heero fucking sacrificed himself – again – to save the kid. I mean the kid who's actually a kid, not this KID," Duo said. KID smirked at that and Haibara's frown deepened.

"We're just waiting for Conan-kun to rejoin us so we can plan a rescue," Professor Agasa said, diffusing the tension by walking in the middle of everyone and handing out cups of tea.

"All right," Haibara said, remaining calm with a great deal of effort. "Who, exactly, are we rescuing him from?"

 

When Conan arrived at Agasa's house a few hours later, he was met by a _very_ unhappy Haibara, with KID lounging on a couch in the background pretending not to eavesdrop. Duo and Agasa were nowhere in sight, having taken the diamond to Agasa's observatory half an hour earlier after a camera had dropped from the future into KID's lap. KID hadn't objected, handing over both the camera (dead) and the diamond indifferently. The diamond didn't matter right now; the Organization did, and here was a chance to be on his own with Haibara, about whom he knew far too little. So the scene Conan had walked in on was KID, wearing Heero's face, attempting to make small talk with Haibara, who simply sat across from him and stared, saying nothing. When Conan walked through the door, she pounced.

"You had _one job_ ," she seethed. "Keep an eye on Heero-kun."

"It's not like I just _handed_ him—"

"Shut up!" Haibara's hands were opening and closing into tiny fists as she advanced on him. Conan took a step back. "Not only did you lose him, you lost him to _the Organization._ He's a walking, talking chemistry experiment! He might even have the cure—" she stopped herself abruptly, glancing back at KID. He had slunk down on the couch, but was peering over the back of it, watching raptly. When he saw Haibara's eyes on him, he straightened.

"Oh, don't mind me," he said, making a shoo-ing motion. "I'll just cover my ears and hum." And he actually did, sticking his fingers in and humming tunelessly. Haibara rolled her eyes, but nevertheless said, in an undertone:

"I think I can synthesize a cure for you from his blood. I can turn you back. Permanently."

Conan's mouth opened, but nothing came out.

"Oh, is that all?" KID asked, pulling his fingers out of his ears. "I already knew about that. The Kudo Shinichi part of it, anyway." He sounded disappointed. When Haibara and Conan just looked at him, one in mild chagrin and the other in resignation, he just grinned. "What kind of magician thief would I be if I couldn't read lips?"

Conan sighed heavily. "We're going to get him back."

"I know that. You've done crazier things," Haibara said, but she didn't sound mollified. "My concern is that you won't get him back _fast_ enough. If they have any reason to suspect he's unusual, or if he tells them anything—"

"He won't," Conan said.

"How can you be so sure? You just met him!"

"If it helps, I don't think he'd willingly give them anything either," KID put in. Haibara glowered at him.

"It doesn't. Just... just get planning. I'll be in the basement, ducking and covering," she said, clearly too upset to continue the conversation. She headed for the lab, exit strategies already whirling through her mind, and slammed the door behind her.

KID raised his eyebrows at Conan. "Well, you heard the lady. Duo and the old man are upstairs."

"Hang on a second, KID," Conan said. "I've got some questions for you."

"You _always_ have questions for me, tantei-kun." KID flopped backward on the couch, hands under his head, staring at the ceiling. "What makes you think you'll get answers this time?"

Conan jumped up to perch on one of the arms, staring down at KID seriously. "This is important. Um. Actually, first could you..." Conan gestured to his own face. "Maybe put something else on? I keep thinking I'm talking to Heero."

"That's because I am amazing. But okay." There was a puff of smoke and when it cleared, KID was lying in exactly the same position. Only this time, it was Shinichi grinning up at Conan.

"Is that supposed to be _less_ distracting?" Conan grumbled.

"How's this?" KID shoved his hands into his hair and rustled it vigorously, letting it fall where it would. Oddly enough, it _did_ make a difference. It also meant that Kuroba Kaito was now casually lounging on Professor Agasa's couch not even the slightest bit in disguise and trying not to giggle at that fact.

"You don't need to look so pleased with yourself," Conan said. "What, you run out of disguises or something?"

"What can I say? I like this face."

"Um... okay," Conan said, not sure what he was _supposed_ to say to something like that. Was that some kind of weird attempt at flattery? Why did he feel like he was missing out on some kind of joke? "Well, look. You know why _I'm_ after the Organization. But how are _you_ tangled up in all this?"

Kaito cast his eyes back to the ceiling, smile fading a few notches. He was silent for quite a while before taking a deep breath and answering. "You know I'm searching for a particular jewel, yes?"

Conan nodded.

"Well, I've got an organization, too. And after tonight, it's looking like my organization and your Organization are the same. Or maybe different branches of the same one. Blondie and his bulky friend were new to me, but I guess you've run into them before?"

"Yeah," Conan said tightly.

"Well, Snake – the one with the alarming face toupee – works for a group that is looking for a jewel that holds the key to eternal life. I mean to find it first." Kaito watched Conan from hooded eyes, waiting for disbelief, mockery... but Conan just put his chin in his hand and bit his lower lip.

"Eternal life, huh? Yeah... yeah, that could be the same organization," he said. "But – wait, you want to live forever?"

"No way," Kaito said with a snort. But then he turned dead serious, voice going cold. "But I don't want them to, either."

Conan nodded, sensing that that was all the explanation he was likely to get. There was backstory there, sure, but he'd figure it out eventually. For now it was enough to know that KID had a score to settle with the Organization, and that he was serious about it.

"All right, KID—"

"Please," Kaito interrupted. "Since we're going to be partners, when it's just us you can call me Kaito," he said with a sparkling smile.

Conan rolled his eyes so hard he thought he might sprain something. "Seriously? You have all of my names, and you give me... first-name basis with your alias. Lovely, _thanks_ , I feel much closer as a team."

Kaito just continued to sparkle at him.

"Whatever. Anyway, _Kaito_ —" If Conan had thought KID's grin couldn't get any bigger, he had been mistaken. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes yet again. "—we should touch base with Duo and Professor Agasa. We need a plan."

 

*

 

Heero woke tied to a chair in the middle of an argument. The chair was metal, so smashing it to free himself was out of the question, and he did seem to be _expertly_ tied – wrists to the chair's arms, ankles to the chair's legs, thick coils of rope around his upper arms, tying each separately to the chair's back. But he wasn't blindfolded or gagged, and the people who were most likely guarding him were too busy arguing to have noticed that he was awake – not that he gave much indication of that fact. He kept his head lowered, breathing regular, and eyes closed. And listened to three voices he recognized argue about what to do next.

"We should be moving. _Now_." That was the one with the mustache, the one Heero had knocked out at the beginning of the fight in the gallery.

"I can't believe you're this scared of some kid in a cape, Snake." This scathing retort from the burly guy Duo had been fighting.

"Not _scared_ – smart. Look, my branch has dealt with him. Yours hasn't. You don't know what you're up against," Snake said. "Infiltration is his specialty. He _will_ try something here, and _you_ guys ain't prepared."

"Good." The leader, the blonde one. "He's made fools of the Organization – your branch of it anyway – for too long. Maybe he's used to dealing with your particular blend of superstition and mob tactics, but here we take a more practical approach to things. If he tries anything, he won't escape with his life. Or his friend's life."

"And then you still won't have the diamond," Snake remarked snidely.

"Acceptable loss. We already know it's not Pandora – or your phantom thief wouldn't have returned it. The only reason we wanted to know about it is because of what _this_ guy–" The blonde kicked the leg of Heero's chair. "–and his friends were poking at it for. And after what we saw him do in the helicopter, we are definitely interested in anything he is interested in."

"...fine," Snake said. "You play with your superhuman. I'm getting in touch with my branch's boss. I think we're done here."

"Yeah, you go back to looking for your magic rock," said the leader's minion. A door scraped open and slammed shut. "Leave the real science to us."

"Good riddance," the blonde said. "Let's get to work. Wake our guest up, Vodka."

Heero had barely braced himself when the back of Vodka's hand collided with his face. He opened his eyes and stared up at the man, who was looking a little worse for the wear after the evening's exertions. A bruise was spreading over one cheekbone and his hat was looking decidedly knocked-about.

"Say, Gin, I think he was already up," Vodka said, leering at Heero.

"Full of surprises, this one," Gin said. He was standing behind Heero now, deliberately in his blind spot. Heero knew better than to turn and look. He did a quick check of his surroundings instead. They were in a large room, mostly dark. A warehouse of some kind, maybe. It smelled damp. He, Gin, and Vodka seemed to be the only ones around. There was a small rolling table containing a few every-day items: a hammer, pliers, a lighter, a car battery, a box of toothpicks, and a few other things Heero couldn't quite make out.

"All right, kid, I'm gonna level with you," Gin said, coming around to where Heero could see him, passing deliberately in front of the table of tools in case Heero hadn't noticed them yet. He was holding a gun quite casually. Heero determined it wasn't an actual threat – just for show, to scare him. They'd use the other items first. "Me and Vodka, here, we work for a secret organization. We're scientists, and we think you can help us. Would you like to help us?"

Heero narrowed his eyes. Exactly how young did these guys think he was?

"Ah, you don't trust us. That's understandable. See, we were a little rough with you because we've got a lot of enemies, and we thought you might be one. We know about most... ah, _special_ individuals in the world, but we don't know anything about you. Maybe you can fill in some blanks. We could start with your name? How old are you, hmm? Where are you from?"

There were a few different schools of thought on withstanding interrogation. Duo, for example, was of the opinion that refusing to say anything at all made you more likely to break later – like a tree that couldn't bend in the wind. Duo would snark and snipe, all the while saying nothing of consequence (and potentially driving his captors to distraction). Heero, on the other hand, had been trained _never_ to break, to die first. He was taught that getting in the habit of talking at all made it more likely that something would slip. So he said nothing, even to the simplest of questions.

Vodka had very little patience for this. "Look, kid, you can talk to us now or you can talk later through a set of broken teeth," he snarled, picking up a hammer.

"Now, Vodka. No need to be so blunt. How about something a little more... precise." Gin rummaged around on the table of tools and came up with the pliers, handing them over to Vodka and relieving him of the hammer. Vodka grinned.

"I guess getting information out of you is really gonna be like pulling teeth, huh?" he quipped. Gin rolled his eyes.

"Last chance, kid. Maybe you don't want to tell us about yourself. But surely there's no harm in telling us about the diamond? Why were you studying it? What do you know about the strange fields it emits?"

Heero, of course, said nothing. Gin frowned. The kid wasn't even sweating. His breathing hadn't even changed. He moved behind Heero again and dug one hand into his hair, yanking his head back sharply so that he was forced to stare at the ceiling. Gin nodded at Vodka.

Heero was skinny enough that his thighs didn't cover the entire seat of the chair. Vodka planted one knee in the space to the side, then grabbed Heero's chin with one hand, forcing his mouth open. Heero put up only a token resistance, biding his time. He waited for the pliers to move closer, waited for Vodka to shift his weight, consolidate his grip, for him to begin to think of the deed as accomplished. Then he bit down – hard.

Heero's jaws were considerably stronger than Vodka's one hand, and his teeth closed on the soft bit between thumb and forefinger and even caught a bit of the finger's first knuckle. Vodka howled, dropped the pliers, and pulled away – which was a mistake, because Heero was still biting down. Gin swore and let go of Heero's hair.

"Fucking— that son of a bitch _bit_ me!"

Heero casually spat to the side. His mouth and teeth were smeared with blood, and a little had run down his chin as well. Vodka was staring at him in disbelief, cradling his mangled hand. Heero let himself smile just a little and very deliberately strained forward against his bonds. Vodka took a step back before recovering himself. There was no way Heero was going anywhere; strong as he was, he would need completely different leverage to damage the chair or the ropes enough to get free. But it was good to know who was afraid of him. His eyes skated over to Gin.

Gin was watching him thoughtfully. Almost eagerly. That one wouldn't be intimidated.

"Go bandage that," Gin said to Vodka. "Hurry up."

Vodka didn't leave the room; there was a first aid kit standing by and with much swearing he carefully disinfected and wrapped his hand while Gin kept his narrow gaze on Heero.

"So. Super strength," Gin said. "What's that like? Don't be coy, we all saw that jump you made to the helicopter. And you held down Snake one-handed. You broke Vodka's grip with your _teeth_. Is it drugs? Some kind of monk training? Maybe this 'magic' business we hear so much about from our colleagues who spend too much time in Ekoda?" When Heero gave no indication of answering, Gin backhanded him, hard enough that the chair rocked a little on its legs. "I know that's not going to have any impact on you. But it does make me feel better," Gin said.

He turned back to the table and surveyed its contents. By his frown, he didn't like what he saw. He picked up the box of toothpicks and rattled it idly, then turned and tossed it to Vodka, who had just tied off his bandage. He caught it awkwardly with one hand. "Go nuts," Gin said. "I'm going to go get some other supplies for our friend here."

 

Gin returned half an hour later with a small metal box, but Heero didn't see him come in. That eye was swollen shut. Gin took in this and his other injuries with an appraising eye. It looked like Vodka had started with the toothpicks but lost patience fairly quickly – the floor was littered with just a few bloody, splintered remains and only one of Heero's hands, clenched around the arm of the chair, exhibited blackening fingernails. He was now sporting a bleeding cut high on his forehead, and one long, thin stripe of red traced a line from collarbone to waist where Vodka had cut open the borrowed hoodie. The car battery now hooked up to a resistor connected to a bronze-tipped wand in Vodka's hand, and the small, darkening patches of skin on Heero's neck and ribcage painted a clear picture of what had happened next.

"You have... zero patience," Gin said, exasperated. "Did he actually give you anything for all of that, or were you just having fun?"

"Didn't so much as squeak," Vodka said sullenly.

Gin _tsk_ 'd and opened the metal box, drawing out a syringe and carefully reading the label. "This should help loosen him up," he said. "If not, we're supposed to cut off a couple of toes to lure in that thief and the diamond, but move the kid himself back to base. Science department wants a word with him."

Vodka nodded and reached out to ruffle Heero's hair. Heero, head bent and deep within his own mind, barely registered it. "Hear that, kid? We get to keep you _and_ the diamond. Sure hope you've got something worthwhile to say!"

Gin jabbed the needle into Heero's arm without much ceremony, depressing the plunger calmly even as Heero's head came up with a jolt and he tried to jerk away instinctively. His body temperature and heart rate immediately shot up as the drug invaded his system and his system fought back. Vodka grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his head up, forcing him to look at Gin, who was leaning over him – but not too close. Heero met his gaze, eyes blazing though a little unfocused.

"Now then, kid: what's your name?"

Heero gritted his teeth as sweat beaded on his skin. Thanks to J's training, not to mention particular experiences in the war, he had a certain amount of resistance to most drugs, especially barbiturates and narcosynthetics. The nice thing about these drugs, Heero reflected lazily, was that they often had a general anesthetic effect. Though, if the numbing part was working, the inhibition-lowering part could be, too. Heero had no idea what kind of drugs they used in this century and could only hope his training would hold up.

Gin frowned at his silence and backhanded him hard enough that his teeth cut the inside of his cheek and he felt a few hairs tear free in Vodka's grip. He spat the blood at Gin's feet and tried to take a deep breath, but felt like he had extra ropes looped around his chest, squeezing.

_Calm down_ , he told himself. _You have plenty of air. Don't panic_.

"Tell us about the diamond. Why were you studying it?" Gin demanded.

Heero's head was swimming. He _wanted_ to talk. There was a lot to say about the diamond, and it was important information. People should know it. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing.

Gin's hand shot out and gripped his throat. "Pay attention, kid. It's a simple question."

Heero met Gin's eyes steadily even as his face reddened from lack of air.

"I'm not... afraid... to die," he choked out.

Gin scowled ferociously and was about to say something, but the sudden distant sound of chopper blades interrupted him. He let go of Heero's throat and grinned. "Time's up. Vodka, get his shoes. I'll get the knife. Looks like our friend's ride is here."

Just as Vodka released his grip on Heero's head, though, every light in the building shut off with an echoing _ka-CHUNK_. The back-up lights did not come on.

"What the _hell_?" Vodka exclaimed, and Heero began to laugh, because he knew _precisely_ what the hell was coming for these men.

"Where the... Flashlights! Get to the breaker box! And someone _shut him up_!" Gin yelled. Several underlings had stumbled their way into the room for orders and were fumbling around in the dark. Heero had not stopped (perhaps _could_ not stop) laughing. Finally someone had the presence of mind to turn on their cell phone and a bright glow darted around the room. The thin light dashing over Heero, revealing a battered and bloody individual tied to a chair, head thrown back and laughing with abandon, did not, in fact, help morale. Vodka finally shoved a foul-tasting rag into Heero's mouth so Gin could give orders. Heero barely even tried to bite him, just let his head tip back and let his drug-soaked brain trick him into thinking the floor was tilting under him.

Luckily, he was doing this with his eyes closed. Otherwise he would have been blinded like the rest of the mob when several flares (slightly modified for enhanced brightness) dropped from the rafters into the darkened room and burst into light. Amidst the shouts and chaos that immediately erupted, no one heard the quick _snikt_ of an anesthetic needle finding its target. No one saw Gin topple over.

What everyone _did_ see as their vision cleared was Gin standing in the doorway of the warehouse. They heard him yell "They went this way! Spread out and search the place! Bring me their heads!" and if anyone thought this was slightly over-the-top for Gin, they were so grateful for an order to follow that they didn't comment. Organization members flooded out of the room, scattering down hallways, searching for the invaders, leaving only Vodka blinking in the warehouse looking frantically between the Gin who had scurried off at the front of the crowd and the Gin lying unconscious at his feet.

"He – hey, wait a minute–!" But Vodka didn't get much further than that before Duo dropped out of nowhere behind him and introduced the butt of a pistol rather forcefully to the back of his skull. Vodka landed on top of Gin, out cold, and Duo turned immediately to Heero.

"Conan, get over here with that flashlight," Duo said impatiently. Conan had been carefully picking his way down from the catwalks after knocking out Gin and had just reached the floor, heart still fluttering in relief. He hadn't been sure the "double strength" anesthetic Agasa had cooked up just hours before would actually work on Gin. He hurried over and shone a light on Heero, then sucked in an audible breath at what the light revealed.

Duo, however, didn't miss a beat. He yanked the rag out of Heero's mouth and sliced the ropes around Heero's wrists, ankles, and arms, then caught Heero as he nearly slid out of the chair onto the floor.

"Hey, Heero, buddy, can you walk?" Duo asked, trying to prop Heero up on his feet. "Come on, man, your legs look fine, what— aw, hell." Heero was squinting at Duo, trying to focus on him. His head lolled forward and their foreheads bumped together. After getting a clear look at Heero's eyes, Duo simply scooped the smaller pilot up princess-style. "He's been drugged."

Conan went cold. "Drugged?" He hadn't told Duo about his own experience with Organization drugs. There hadn't been time. It wasn't relevant to the rescue operation. And keeping that secret at this point was a habit. "Is he... is he okay?" he asked, swallowing thickly. Duo looked down at Conan, a little surprised.

"Jesus, yes, sorry, I keep forgetting you're a kid. He'll be fine, just means I have to haul his ass back to the helicopter. Now come on, KID can't keep those guys busy all night," Duo said.

"Sure about that?" Conan muttered, but Duo was already heading for the stairs back up to the catwalks. Right now, KID was appearing in various guises around the docks, and causing hapless Organization lackeys to turn up in various guises as well, meaning that there would be multiple simultaneous sightings of Gin, Heero, and KID, causing maximum confusion. It was what KID excelled at. They probably had plenty of time.

Conan glanced over his shoulder to where Gin and Vodka lay in what could perhaps be considered a fair approximation of a Vesper martini. His fingers twitched and he looked guiltily at Duo, who was already climbing the stairs, all attention on Heero. He was _so close_. It would be foolish not to...

"What are you doing, tantei-kun?" KID asked, emerging from an air vent. His white suit was somehow spotless despite that. "Is now really the best time?"

"I can't just _let them go_ ," Conan said, though really, he didn't know _what_ he had been thinking. What was he going to do with them now that he had them? His gaze landed on Vodka's table of tools, lingered just a hair too long, then quickly slid away.

"Well, as far as that goes," KID said with a little smile. "I may or may not have already put in a call to Inspector Nakamori. I'm afraid he wasn't too pleased at the hour, but when he figured out it was me," KID shrugged self-deprecatingly. "Let's just say they'll be here soon." He knelt, pulled two pairs of handcuffs out of nowhere, and cuffed Gin and Vodka together. Then he stood, dusting his gloved hands off and glancing around. His eyes hardened in an entirely different way than Conan's had as they landed on the car battery, the spatterings of blood drying on the concrete, the cut ropes. "This is the best we can do for now."

"But—"

KID rolled his eyes and strode past Conan, collaring him as he went and dragging him along to the stairs. "Later, tantei-kun," he said over Conan's protests. "There are more important things."

"I know, but Duo can take care of—"

"Did you forget we had more than one reason for rescuing Heero?" KID asked, stopping and looking curiously down at Conan, who was trying to wriggle out of his jacket. KID sighed and knelt, taking Conan by the shoulders. "We have to take care of you, first, you know. Then we'll be able to take out these guys that much easier."

Conan blinked, considering that 'we' KID had casually dropped in there. KID took advantage of this pause to use his grip on Conan's shoulders to spin him around, whipping the jacket off and re-applying it backward, tying off the sleeves behind Conan's back. He then hoisted the tiny detective over his shoulder and sprinted up the stairs.

"Sorry, sorry!" KID said, though his laughter belied his words. "We're in kind of a hurry here!" Conan was shouting at him – the usual imprecations and swearing – but KID was ignoring it. Duo was already on the roof and had laid Heero across the seats of the police helicopter they'd stolen earlier that evening – or morning, as the case was. He paused in climbing into the pilot's seat to arch an eyebrow at KID and the writhing bundle over his shoulder. KID tossed Conan into the back with Heero, heaved the door closed, and gestured at Duo to get on with it before jumping into the passenger side. Moments later they were airborne.

"Just in time," KID said with satisfaction, looking out the window at the rapidly receding ground where red and blue flashing lights were beginning to congregate.

"Are police usually this quick in this century?" Duo asked, carefully steering the helicopter out over the bay in the least suspicious manner possible.

"Only when the famous Kaito KID calls to tell them he's stolen a police helicopter and that they'll find it at this location."

Duo nearly dropped the controls. "You mean they're _looking_ for us?"

"Ah, well, I imagine they'll be occupied with the other little presents we left them," KID said complacently. "Then... there's also that," he said, nodding out the window. Another helicopter was approaching the docks. They'd be passing it momentarily. It could be mistaken for a police helicopter at a distance, but it definitely wasn't government issue. KID narrowed his eyes at it as they buzzed past each other at a safe distance. The windows were tinted so he couldn't make out anyone inside, but the copter was definitely heading for the landing pad atop the warehouse.

KID craned his neck around to watch it land, straining for a glimpse of whoever might be coming out. But they were too far away. All he saw was a figure that could have been either male or female wearing nondescript black clothes.

"Don't tell me you arranged a decoy chopper," Duo said.

"I didn't, actually," KID said cheerfully. "I do believe some grand muckety-muck of the Organization is about to get a rather rude surprise."

"What?!" This from the back seat, where Conan was writhing around on the floor. KID cast him a pitying glance.

"Try not to hurt yourself, Meitantei."

"You know, you could untie me. It's not like I'm going to leap out of the helicopter or something," Conan grumbled.

KID raised his eyebrows. "Why don't I believe you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That wasn't so bad, was it? And look, I didn't even drag it out longer than one chapter :) (This was originally two chapters. I mashed them together because no one needed that.)
> 
> NEXT CONAN'S HINT:  
> "Mad science runs in the family."


	7. In Which Duo is Not a Doctor and Kaito KID and Shinichi are Not Dating

Heero woke up knowing he was safe. Before he allowed himself to open his eyes, though, he traced that knowledge to its origins.

The damp smell of the warehouse was gone, replaced by a clean sort of nothing-smell. He was lying down on some kind of cot or maybe an examination table and could feel the bandages covering each of his injuries, most of which were dull aches at this point. His eye was already less swollen and there was something soft and familiar wrapped around his uninjured hand.

Heero opened his eyes and turned his head just enough to look down at that hand. The end of Duo's braid was draped across his knuckles, the tip closed in his fist. Duo himself was slumped forward in a chair next to Heero's cot, arms folded on the edge of the bed, cheek resting on arms, facing away from Heero and apparently sound asleep. Heero opened his fingers slowly and let the braid go.

He laid there for a few minutes, staring at the back of Duo's head and the steady rise and fall of his shoulders. They were back in Haibara's lab, but Haibara was nowhere to be seen. His chest was swathed in bandages and nothing else, but he seemed to still be wearing Shinichi's jeans. This cot hadn't been here before. It appeared to be a cross between an examination table and a portable camp bed. Something people prepared to deal with injuries or serious illness might have on hand.

He wondered how long he'd been out. The longer he was awake, the more insistent the pain was becoming, and he did a quick mental check to make sure none of his wounds were life-threatening.

The electrical burns on his torso throbbed and all of his muscles felt wrung out, as though he'd just finished a triathlon or three, but his heart rate seemed normal. It was lucky Gin had returned when he did, though, because Vodka had made it clear that Heero's chest was just a testing ground to calibrate the device before moving elsewhere. Heero didn't need Vodka to tell him the more common places to use an electric prod like that.

Heero frowned and deliberately turned his mind to his other injuries. He couldn't feel the cut down his chest and stomach amid all of the other damage there, but it had been shallow. Vodka hadn't been actively trying to hurt him then, just careless. Or eager. There was some stiffness in his neck where Gin had choked him. The last three fingers of his left hand were bandaged separately. They stung worse than the shock wounds, really, and if he was remembering exactly what Vodka had done, then the fingernails had probably completely fallen off and his fingers would continue to sting for at least a month. How annoying.

Duo stirred slightly then, shoulders hunching then straining with a deep waking yawn. He picked up his head a bit to turn toward Heero, then straightened suddenly when he was met with a deep blue gaze.

"Idiot. Why didn't you wake me up?" he said groggily. Heero shrugged, then pushed himself into a sitting position. Duo looked like he wanted to argue against this action, but knew exactly how much good it would do and decided to save his breath.

"The diamond?" Heero asked. His voice was rough and thick. Duo silently handed him a sealed water bottle.

"KID and the kid were poking at it last I heard," Duo said as Heero drank. "Is it stupid to ask how you're doing?"

"I didn't tell them anything."

"That... that is _so_ not what I was asking. You think I don't know you or something?" Duo shook his head. "I literally need you to tell me your status right now. Because those injuries you're wearing? I know what it would do to _me_. But it's anyone's guess how they're affecting Super Heero – and _don't_ lie and power through it. There's no need. We're not in the middle of a war here."

"I'm fine." The plastic of the water bottle crackled under Heero's hands.

"You fucking liar," Duo said, resigned.

"Where is everyone?"

"Changing the subject, very smooth," Duo said. He leaned back in the chair, arms crossed, but when Heero simply stared at him silently he relented. "If you must know, you chased them all away. How much do you remember from last night?"

_Crunch_ went the water bottle. Luckily, Heero had drained it. "I remember... you. Cut me loose. And then..." Heero frowned. It was fuzzy after that.

"And then hauled your ass up three flights of stairs, over a catwalk, out a window, and into a helicopter where you had the good sense to pass out – until we got you back here, anyway. Then you started trying to kill anyone who got too close to you."

Heero's eyebrows contracted and he looked down to his right hand, then back up at Duo. "Anyone?"

"Okay, you made an exception for the god of death for some fucking reason. Probably not your best choice, but hey, no accounting for taste and primitive drugs," Duo said. "So if your bandages suck, that's why. I'm not a doctor."

"They're fine," Heero said, running a hand down his well-wrapped ribs.

"This from the guy who once set his own leg and splinted it with a wrench. Forgive me if I'm skeptical," Duo said. He took a breath as though he was going to say more, then stopped and looked at the ground instead. Heero waited a few moments to see if he was going continue. When nothing was forthcoming, he swung his legs off the bed and stood, not even cringing when his bare feet touched the cold floor.

"Hey – hey wait a sec," Duo said, getting to his feet. Heero, already on his way to the door, turned. "I'm... shit, I don't know what to say," Duo said, rubbing the back of his head. Heero's eyebrows contracted in confusion and Duo let out an explosive breath. "It's just, we were supposed to be _done_ with this shit. The war's over. This kind of stuff shouldn't... but since it did... argh, I'm not making any sense." Duo closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried again. "Look, back then we were scattered all over Earth and space and we just... soldiered on. And then it was over, and who wants to relive that shit? But now... I mean, what I'm trying to say is, if you wanna talk about what happened... you can."

"...I'm all right, Duo," Heero said. He turned and left. Duo remained in the lab slightly longer, at a loss. What he had not told Heero was that, after Heero had finally succumbed to sleep, with his conscious mind off-guard and the drug still lingering, Heero had actually talked. Well, more like mumbled. Either way, Duo could make out enough to know that Heero definitely was _not_ "all right." He shook his head and trailed after Heero, ascending the stairs much more slowly.

When he arrived in Agasa's living room, Heero was already sitting with Haibara, the two of them apparently in serious conversation. Agasa was tinkering with a vacuum cleaner on the other side of the room. By the look of things, he had actually been vacuuming, but had stopped midway through to make some adjustments. He couldn't have been at it long; there were no strange noises or smells coming from it yet. Duo cast a considering glance at Haibara and Heero, then wandered over to join Agasa, reasoning that he deserved some slightly less dramatic conversation for a change.

"Hey, Prof. Where is everyone?"

"Oh, Conan-kun went back to Ran-kun's. She'll be home from school soon, so best if he's actually there being sick." Agasa jammed a screwdriver behind one of the vacuum's wheels and started wiggling it back and forth, tongue between his teeth in concentration. "And I imagine the Junior Detective League will be by with his homework shortly so he'll have to deal with that." The wheel popped off and Duo caught it. Agasa produced a different, larger wheel from somewhere inside his lab coat. "As for KID?" Agasa shrugged. "Vanished!" He laughed. "And I do mean that literally."

Duo frowned and slowly, deliberately reached out to pinch Agasa's cheek, which only made Agasa laugh harder.

"No, no, it's really me, and KID's really gone off to wherever he goes when he's not running heists. Or rescue operations," he added thoughtfully before going to work on the other wheel.

"Yeah, okay look, level with me here, Prof," Duo said, turning the vacuum's original wheel over and over in his hands. "I get why the _criminal_ needs a secret identity. But what's with Conan? You've got Haibara here, clearly missing school, and neither of you is particularly concerned. Why does Conan jump through all these hoops to act like a normal eight-year-old?"

"Now that is a complex question," Professor Agasa said, nodding to himself. "And one that Conan-kun will have to answer himself. Although..." He glanced over at Haibara and Heero. "It may become elementary shortly."

Duo sighed. "That's nice and useless. Thank you for that."

"No problem. Now. Can you hand me that soldering iron?"

"Sure. Why not."

 

Duo watched Agasa tinker with the vacuum for a little longer, but when Heero and Haibara abruptly stood and went back down to the lab, he followed after them quickly. Heero was sitting on the edge of the cot/examination table and Haibara was sitting on a tall chair so she could reach Heero's arm. She was prepping for a blood draw and, to Duo's surprise, Heero was very calmly letting her.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Haibara debriefed me on the Organization," Heero said, watching her needle slide effortlessly into a vein. "It seems we were very lucky."

"If that's lucky, what the hell is _unlucky_?" Duo demanded.

"Unlucky is the Organization trying one of their experimental drugs on your friend. Unlucky is the Organization getting a sample of his blood," Haibara said, quickly and expertly swapping the now-full vial with an empty one. "Unlucky is them identifying any of you and following you home," she said. The hand holding the full vial shook a little and she set it down on the table with a clatter, then replaced the latest full one with another empty one.

"As it is, they have no way of following either you or me since we have no records in this century," Heero said, watching his blood drain into the glass vial impassively. "No one at the warehouse saw Conan. And no one knows who KID actually is. So they have no way to trace us back here."

"I guess it's too much to hope that the police just arrested them all?" Duo asked. Haibara shook her head.

"That won't slow them down for more than a day or two. Then again..." She removed the needle from Heero's arm and added the vial to her collection. "A lot of things could be very different in a day or two."

"Was that nice, vague comment meant to somehow explain why you've suddenly decided to play leech with Heero? And why you're letting her?" Duo asked with a raised eyebrow in Heero's direction.

Heero glanced a question at Haibara, who shrugged. "I can't stop you from telling him. But I can advise against it."

"If you trust me, you trust him," Heero said. "And if you want our help taking out the Organization after—"

"I don't," Haibara said bluntly. "I want you to go back to – God help me – the future so you're not running around here carrying _this_ in your veins—" She brandished one of the blood samples she'd taken. "—just waiting for the Organization to find you. And they _will_ , eventually, now that they know you exist. So you'll put yourself well out of their reach, and Kudo-kun and his magical boy will take care of things here."

"And where does that leave you?" Heero asked.

"Me?" Haibara smiled a little. "I'm just a kid. A prodigy, sure, but I'll leave all this scary, dangerous stuff to the adults."

"Uh... Time out," Duo said, making a T out of his hands. "Shinichi? The detective who fucked off to America? He of the incredibly boring wardrobe?" Haibara nodded. "And Heero's blood... has something to do with bringing down the Organization? Heero, you're okay with her giving your blood to some guy you've never met to... to use as a weapon or something?" He looked back and forth between Heero and Haibara. "The hell you are. I want the truth. What's going on here?"

"Tell him, Haibara. You're confident this will work, right? If you don't tell him, he's just going to think Shinichi's lying to him later. It could complicate our leaving."

Haibara let out a frustrated sigh. "Fine. But if what I'm attempting doesn't work, you're both sworn to secrecy. If I ever have any reason to think you're going to talk about this with _anyone_ other than each other, I will find you and do terrible things to you."

Duo raised his hand.

" _What._ "

"Does that rule apply to when we get back to the present? Cuz Lady Une is all about the mission debriefs and—"

Haibara massaged her forehead. "Let me put it this way." She thrust a finger in Heero's direction. "If _he_ thinks it's okay to talk about, it's okay to talk about. Please do not attempt to use your own best judgment."

Duo looked mildly affronted and opened his mouth to say something more but Heero cut him off with a look. Duo huffed and crossed his arms. "Fine. So what's this big secret?"

"Edogawa Conan is actually Kudo Shinichi," Haibara said without preamble. She waited for it to sink in.

"Uh – what? Wait. The international detective guy is a _kid_?"

"No. Edogawa-kun is actually an adult. He would be eighteen by now, I believe," Haibara said.

"He's... an adult. Who looks like a kid. O...kay. What's up with that?"

"It was a poison, about two years ago," Haibara said. "It was intended to kill him. Instead it... de-aged him. We're not sure why. The poison has worked flawlessly in several other subjects..." she trailed off, turning the bottle of Heero's blood absently in her hand. Heero reached out and took it from her, setting it firmly on the lab table and she looked up, startled. "Um. Anyway. We don't know what it is about him that made it have that result. And we've managed to reverse it a few times, but never _permanently_. Heero-kun's blood has some unusual proteins that—"

"Wait wait wait," Duo interrupted. "Are you a shrunk-down adult too?"

Haibara nearly choked, but covered it neatly with a laugh. "Me? No, no. What kind of crazy coincidence would that be? I'm totally normal."

"You have a lab in a basement."

"Mad science runs in the family. I get it from Uncle Agasa. Anyway," she said, steamrolling any further objections. "That's why Edogawa-kun is so careful about keeping up appearances and going to school. If anyone looks too closely at his identity, it could be a problem. I don't have that issue. Because I'm exactly who everyone thinks I am," she lied smoothly. But Duo's mind was already jumping to something else.

"Hang on, then. If he's really eighteen, then... I guess it's not creepy, after all," he mused. "Does KID know?"

Haibara frowned. "Why... would you ask that?"

"That's a yes, is it?" Duo slammed his hands down on the table in front of him, making Haibara jump. "Right! We have to help them!"

"Them?" she asked, completely lost.

"Yeah. I mean I know it can't be easy for Co– I mean Shinichi – but it's not gonna be a picnic for his boyfriend either, is it? Talk about awkward."

"His... boyfriend." Realization dawned. "Kaito KID and Kudo-kun aren't dating!"

"What? Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"Okay, then we have to help them with that, too. First things first!" Duo rubbed his hands together vigorously, then stopped. "Uh... what's first?"

Heero answered that question by very quietly passing out, his body slumping down to the cot. Duo swore and was at his side in a moment, checking his pulse.

"How much blood did you take?!"

"Not that much," Haibara said calmly. "He's probably just exhausted. Tell me, does he make a habit of getting tortured, making astonishing strides in physical recovery in just a few hours, not eating anything, and then donating blood?"

"Um... yes. That is a thing he does. I mean not all of those things, specifically, but... yeah."

Haibara checked Heero's pupils and took his pulse herself. "He'll be fine. Take him up to the spare room. Maybe he'll sleep a little longer if he's more comfortable," Haibara ordered. "And it wouldn't kill him to eat and drink when he wakes up."

"Yeah... yeah, okay," Duo said, scooping Heero up. He left, attention clearly completely refocused on Heero. Haibara sighed in relief, happy to finally have the lab back to herself so that she could get to work.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like everything's going to be just fine! What's that? There are still 12 chapters, an epilogue, and a post-credits scene to go? Don't worry I'm sure it's all fluff.
> 
> NEXT CONAN'S HINT:  
> "And what time do you call this?" Duo asked, hands on hips.


	8. In Which a Window is Opened

The day that followed held very little rest for anybody _except_ Heero. Conan was at Ran's faking sick, but texting Haibara incessantly whenever he got the chance. Haibara had finally threatened to turn her phone off and now he was texting _Agasa_ incessantly.

KID had tried to go home to get some rest, but found he couldn't. There was too much happening. What if he missed something? After lying around for approximately fifteen minutes, he determined the effort was futile, put on some inconspicuous clothing, reloaded his stash of tricks and surprises, and went back out to spy on his favorite people and make sure they didn't do anything interesting without him.

Duo was wandering back and forth between Agasa's spare room, staring at Heero, and Agasa's observatory/lab, glaring at the diamond. He'd never known it was possible to hate an inanimate object quite so much. The mobile dolls hadn't even made him this angry. At least he could understand those; there were human beings behind them, not some weird blend of magic and science and a vague idea of a shadowy organization. He wanted to take the diamond and hurl it across the room which was, of course, irrational. But then he would go look at Heero, utterly still in sleep and covered in bruises and bandages, and get even angrier.

It wasn't just Heero. The inactivity on the part of his friends in the future was worrying him. Nothing had come through since before they'd set out to rescue Heero, and while that had only been about twenty-four hours ago, it _felt_ like a lot longer. He knew Quatre would never give up on them as long as they were alive – and he was pretty sure Quatre would just _know_ if they died, what with his freaky empathy thing and all. But what if getting thrown several centuries in the past was just like dying? As usual he had no answers, so all he could do was worry and pace and, eventually, sleep.

As so often happens when people are waiting for something, when things began to happen they happened all at once. It was late at night – or possibly early in the morning – and a thunderstorm was blowing through the city, driving sheets of rain before it as it grumbled discontentedly through the clouds.

A shock of lightning blazed through the night, letting loose a crack of thunder loud enough to rattle the windowpanes of Professor Agasa's house, and Heero startled awake. The room was pitch dark and someone was grabbing him from behind. He thrust his head back sharply, intending to break his assailant's nose. There was an incoherent shout and the arms around him loosened. Heero shoved himself away clumsily, having difficulty finding purchase on the squashy surface that both he and the attacker had been horizontal on.

"Heero, fucking _wait_. It's me. It's Duo. Zero-two. Ringing any fucking bells?"

The last shreds of sleep fled Heero's mind and he shook his head, recognizing Duo's voice. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and he saw that they were in Agasa's spare room. Duo had shoved the two couches together, seat-to-seat, so that they formed a sort of nest.

"Duo," Heero said, feeling his heart rate return to normal. Then, with sudden realization, "Your nose. Are you—"

"Fine. Lucky you're short. You rammed your thick skull into my chin."

"Sorry."

"'S okay. Should have woken you up before..." Duo gestured at the couch configuration they were now sitting in. "You were having a nightmare, but it seemed to go away when I got close, and you really needed the rest, so..." He shrugged.

Heero looked at his knees. He had jammed himself into the corner of one of the couches. Duo was lounging on the opposite couch, trying to suppress a yawn.

"Did Haibara—" Heero began, at the same time as Duo said "Do you wanna—"

Both stopped, and Duo laughed. "I was gonna ask if you wanted to tell me what you were dreaming, but you're already thinking of what happens next," he said. Heero frowned, then levered himself up and out of the couch nest, heading for the door. "That's what I figured," Duo mumbled, snuggling back down onto the cushions. He fumbled around for the blanket and pulled it over his head.

A moment later he heard the front door open downstairs, swore, and vaulted off the couches and out of the room after Heero.

But it wasn't Heero leaving the house Duo had heard. It was Conan entering, looking like an eight-year-old who had just skateboarded a few blocks in a downpour. He looked up from where he was removing his sodden sneakers, startled, clearly not having expected anyone to be awake. Indeed, Agasa was still snoring away, though Duo couldn't speak for Haibara. Heero was nowhere to be seen.

"And what time do you call this?" Duo asked, hands on hips. Conan gestured for him to be quiet, then crossed to the door down to Haibara's lab. It was locked. She must have gone to bed. Conan frowned and went straight to Agasa's jacket, fishing around in the pockets for his keys while Duo watched, amused. When he came up empty, his brow creased and he put on what Duo was coming to think of as his detective face. Duo flapped a hand at him to get his attention, then exaggeratedly plucked a lock pick from his braid.

He had the door open in a matter of moments, figuring that Haibara probably didn't mean to keep out the guy her work was intended for. Conan grinned at him and squelched down the stairs. Duo followed curiously.

"What are you doing here at–" Duo glanced at a clock on the wall. "Ugh, four AM? Isn't Ran going to wonder?" Duo was watching Conan more closely than normal, trying to see some glimpse of the adult supposedly lurking inside him.

"She's spending the night at Sonoko-neechan's. She had a date and Sonoko-neechan said they had to 'debrief.' I guess it's getting serious." _Taro again_. _She really likes him._ It still surprised him how pleased that knowledge made him feel. And a little guilty, because wrapped up in that feeling was the thought that Taro had saved him from doing something he didn't really want to do: explain to Ran that they could never be an item not only because of the danger he fully intended to launch himself into, but because his two-year fiction of living with her as Conan had genuinely caused him to begin looking at her as a sister – if indeed he had ever felt any other way about her. If she and Taro were serious, they could just avoid that whole conversation and stay friends. Much neater that way.

"Mazel tov," Duo said drily. "That doesn't explain why you are here _before the sun_."

"Haibara called. She said to come over in the morning." Conan shrugged. "Four AM is morning."

"Cute," Duo said. "But unless you're planning on dragging Haibara out of bed – which I do _not_ recommend, by the way – this was a waste of time. Doesn't look like she left anything lying around where you could just, I don't know, take it without waiting for instructions or supervision."

"Yeah..." Conan said, but he was looking around the room with his hand on his chin and Duo got the impression he wasn't really listening. "Hey, could you—"

Whatever Conan had been about to ask Duo, he was interrupted by the distinctive noise of someone trying to open the door at the top of the stairs. When they found it locked, they began pulling more forcefully, rattling the heavy door on its hinges. Apparently it automatically locked when it closed. "Stay here," Duo ordered, taking the stairs two at a time. He barely paused at the top, putting his shoulder to the door and opening it forcefully outward in the hope of taking whoever was attacking it by surprise.

Heero let go of the door as soon as it began to open, taking two steps back and not even having the decency to fall on his ass. Duo raised his eyebrows at him. "What, you couldn't knock?"

"You disappeared. That was the last place left to check," Heero said.

"So you were just going to tear the door off the hinges?"

"It seemed the most expedient way to go about things."

Professor Agasa sat up in his bed, blinking owlishly at them. "Sorry, professor!" Duo said in a hushed voice. "Nothing to worry about. Go back to sleep."

Conan had crept up the stairs behind Duo and was now peering around the doorframe. "Everything all right?"

"Peachy. Come out and close the door. We are all going back to sleep," Duo said grouchily.

"Okay!" Conan said cheerfully, which should have made Duo suspicious, but he was tired. Conan made sure Duo saw him push the door all the way closed and then followed him and Heero upstairs.

"What do you mean, _I_ disappeared?" Duo was grumbling. "You're the one who walked off."

"I went to the _bathroom_ ," Heero said, and it was the closest to exasperated Conan had ever heard him.

"A normal person would just say that!"

Conan listened for the click of the door to the spare room and a few more moments of bickering before turning around and going right back down the stairs.

Agasa was already snoring again and Conan silently tugged on the basement door. It swung open smoothly and Conan removed the tape he'd placed over the latch to prevent it from catching in the strike plate. The door closed behind him as he descended back into Haibara's lab.

He stood in the middle of the lab and turned slowly in a circle, letting his eyes fall on everything, all just where Haibara liked it. Gleaming counters with a scattering of notebooks and pens, lined with short shelves at the back whose containers were organized, but occasionally overflowing into the counter space. Computer desk, PC powered down. Free standing shelving full of equipment and supplies. A few chemical models.

He checked the small lab fridge first because sometimes things were easy, or so he'd heard. Not in this case.

Pursing his lips, he wandered over to her chair and sat in it, then kicked off from the desk letting the wheels carry him across the room to the counter opposite the desk. Then he kicked back. He examined the floor. Tile, swept well enough. No worn spots to show a well-traveled path.

He made a soft humming sound and let his eyes unfocus, running over the room again and giving his brain a chance to work. Then he frowned and looked again at the fridge.

The top of it was completely bare. Every other horizontal surface in the lab had some kind of storage on it or was otherwise in use, but not the top of the fridge, which was level with the counters. No wall-mounted shelves above it, either.

Conan's eyes barely cleared the height of the counters when he was standing, though. Haibara's chair was tall, but she didn't just roll around the room to do her work. So where – ah.

There was a step ladder stored under the counter just to the right of the fridge. It was about as far away as it was possible to get from the full-size shelving in the corner, yet it was the only way Haibara would ever be able to reach the top shelves.

Conan set it up, climbed onto the fridge, and checked the wall, first tapping, then pressing, then prying around the edges of one of the faux wood boards that paneled the wall. But this one was real, and fell away in his hand. He peered into the tiny cubby behind it and smiled a satisfied smile. Then he snuck out of the house.

 

Conan wasn’t _particularly_ good at sneaking. Theoretically, he could devise the perfect way to get anywhere and leave no evidence behind, but in practice… well, he was as good as any other child who had frequent cause to avoid the adults in their life. Given the kinds of people currently occupying Agasa’s home, that shouldn’t have been enough. But it was, because at that precise moment the super soldier pilot was out cold (because while it took rather a lot to render Heero unconscious, once he was there he tended to linger) while the thief pilot was panicking in Agasa’s observatory. 

Duo’s distraction could, perhaps, be forgiven, as the portal was showing the first signs of activity since they had brought the diamond back to Agasa's. _Something_ had come through. Or, it had started to come through and seemed to have stopped halfway. It looked like some kind of metal frame, two corners jutting out of nothing in the air above the diamond. When Duo saw it, he immediately turned and took two steps to the door to get Heero, then whirled and took two steps back toward whatever was trying to come through, then repeated the process a few more times in quick succession before finally deciding that, yes, having Heero present was likely the right move.

Duo was not a particularly calm person when he was stressed, and by the time he'd roused Heero and gotten him to the observatory Haibara had woken up and joined them. The three of them watched as the metal corner hovering in midair slowly rotated and revealed itself to be part of what looked like a rectangular frame slowly emerging from nothingness.

"Should we... I dunno, grab it?" Duo asked.

"I vote no," Haibara said, watching it suspiciously.

"It's a window," Heero said. Duo looked at him askance, wondering if the blood loss had gotten to him. But when he turned back to the thing in the portal, he saw that Heero was right.

The metal shape was, in fact, a frame much like a window frame, complete with a large glass pane that looked like it could be slid up and down. And through the window, they could see...

"I see you two have been busy," Wufei said dryly, taking in Heero's shirtless, battered state. Heero, Duo, and Haibara couldn't actually hear him through the glass, but for Heero and Duo, at least, lip-reading wasn't a problem.

Duo let out a whoop and ran forward, pressing his face to the glass immediately to get a look at as much of the space on the other side as possible. It looked like they were still in the room they had discovered the portal in. Trowa was leaning over one of the banks of computers, carefully watching a set of readings and occasionally adjusting a dial ever so slightly. At the very edge of the area visible to Duo through the frame, Quatre sat at the opposite bank of computers with his back to the window, utterly still, apparently intent on something Duo couldn't see. He smooshed his face further into the windowpane trying to get a look.

"Is that really necessary, Maxwell? You're going to smudge the glass," Wufei complained, though the relief in his posture was obvious to everyone. Heero circled the frame curiously. From the other side of the window, all he could see was Duo's face squashed against it. The frame was also thinner. From this side he couldn't see the part of it that was still in the future. He came back around to the front looking thoughtful.

"What's with Cat?" Duo asked.

"He's... working on getting you home," Wufei said. Trowa glanced over his shoulder at them with a frown.

"Tell them the truth, Wufei."

Wufei sighed heavily. "Fine. He's hooked up to the Zero system."

Heero straightened and Duo laughed nervously, looking more closely at Quatre's preternaturally still form. "Everyone still alive?"

Haibara raised her eyebrows at that. Tired of only hearing one side of the conversation, she hurried from the room and reappeared a minute later with a stethoscope. She put it on and applied the end of it to the glass.

"...only way to figure out such a complex piece of machinery in a short amount of time," Wufei was explaining. "He insisted, and – who's this?" he asked, noticing Haibara for the first time.

"Don't mind me," Haibara said. "Do carry on." She shifted to the opposite side of the window, testing the stethoscope there.

"Haibara's a mad scientist in training," Duo said. "She's all right."

"This is going to be a really long mission debrief, isn't it?" Wufei asked. Haibara came back around to the front. She'd been unable to hear anything from Wufei's side through the back of the window.

"You don't know the half of it. So hey, what do we have to do to get back? Can we just climb through the window?" Duo asked, but Wufei was already shaking his head.

"No. Look." He slid the window open, just like an ordinary window. But as the glass pane parted from the sill, Duo, Heero, and Haibara lost vision of the future in that space. The window was open maybe five inches, and through the opening all they could see was the other side of Agasa's lab. Above the opening, Trowa and Wufei were still plain as day, but no sound or image carried through the gap.

Heero stuck his hand through the opening. Nothing happened. The air in the opening of the window was firmly in the present.

"Hn," he said.

"I know," Wufei said. "But now look at this." They watched as Wufei picked up a long metal pipe from a pile on the floor. He slowly pushed it through the opening on his side – and it appeared through the opening on Heero, Duo, and Haibara's side. Before it went all the way through, though, he pulled it back.

"You guys might not be able to come back through on your own, but we might be able to _pull_ you through. Quatre's running simulations for live subjects now. We should know in a few hours."

"A few _hours_? Yes!" Duo exclaimed. "Goodbye smelly prehistory, hello convenient space travel and normal accents."

"That's _if_ we figure out it's safe," Wufei warned. "We're not going to try this if there's a chance it could bring you back inside out or something."

"Aw, you do care."

"Quatre's rules, not mine, Maxwell. I'm not arguing with him when he's Zeroed out," Wufei said with a huff.

"Regardless," Heero said, interrupting before it could turn into a full-blown argument. "We should tell Conan."

"Actually," said a new voice from the doorway, low and smug, "I'm afraid no one is going to be telling Conan anything ever again."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so drama. many suspense. wow.
> 
> NEXT CONAN'S HINT!  
> "If you're supposed to be so smart, why are you about to do something so very, very stupid?"


	9. In Which Kaito KID is Not a Doctor, Either

By the time Duo had made the decision to rouse Heero to come look at the thing appearing through the portal, Conan was already kicking his shoes off in the entryway of his – Shinichi's – house. If Haibara thought he was going take this antidote while everyone stared at him, she was woefully mistaken.

Holding the test-tube-shaped bottle he'd swiped from Haibara's hidey-hole carefully, he walked the familiar route to his own room. He didn't even need the frequent flashes of lightning to illuminate the way. A few years spent living somewhere else – as someone else – hadn't diminished his familiarity with his home. Even if it had, the smell alone when he walked in the door would have been enough to bring it all back. It smelled like home; like his mother's perfume clinging to the coats in the closet, like hundreds of books occupying what was probably really too small a space for them, like dust gathering between the pages of those books, like that weird smell the vacuum cleaner made, and the particular fabric softener they used, and a million other things combined into a cocktail that was unique to this house.

It made him feel better and worse at the same time every time he came here.

Another brilliant flash from the storm chased the shadows to the corners of his room, and a simple flick of a switch ensured they stayed there. He sat on the edge of his bed – he had to hop a little to do that – and kicked his feet a few times, rolling the tube in his hand, gathering his courage.

It was really more like an epipen, he could see now; an orange cap and spring-loaded needle topping off the otherwise clear tube. Luckily Haibara labeled things excessively. This one didn't have a name, being brand new and all, but her handwriting was on the side on a small label that said "For Conan" with today's date printed underneath. He took a deep breath.

"I don't blame you for hesitating."

"Gah!" Conan started and bobbled the cure for a moment before catching it in both hands and clutching it to his chest. Kaito KID was sitting on his windowsill as the curtains blew around him. His soaked state did not appear to be impeding his good humor, and he grinned at Conan while dripping onto his floor. "What are you doing here?" Conan asked.

KID was wearing normal clothes – or, more normal than his usual outfit. A dark jacket, jeans, and a baseball cap that all would have made him nondescript on any street in the city. "I thought you were supposed to be some kind of genius detective," KID said.

"The day I can figure out why you do anything is the day I retire happy."

KID let out a little breathy laugh. "Don't be ridiculous. No one can figure me out. What I meant," KID hopped off the sill and closed the window behind him as a roll of thunder interrupted him. He waited for it to pass. Then, "What I _meant_ was, if you're supposed to be so smart, why are you about to do something so very, very stupid?"

"What, this?" Conan considered the tube in his palm. "This isn't stupid," he said, with a little more vehemence than he'd intended. "It's–" he trailed off. _Salvation_ , he'd been about to say, but that sounded melodramatic even to him.

"It's an unmarked, untested vial of chemicals that you're meant to be taking under professional supervision. Not alone someplace no one knows where to find you if something goes wrong."

" _You_ knew where to find me," Conan pointed out.

"Yes, but I'm a stalker, not a doctor. Can we please go back to the house with the nice medical facilities and monitoring equipment?"

"You go on. I'll be right behind you."

KID laughed fully this time, sliding down the wall as he leaned against it until he was sitting on the floor with his legs sprawled out in front of him, looking up at Conan still perched on the edge of the bed. "Has that ever actually worked?"

"You'd be surprised," Conan said wryly. "You get used to people underestimating you because you're a kid."

"Well, you won't have to put up with that much longer."

"Maybe," Conan said. He met KID's eyes. "You know I've changed back before," he said. KID shrugged, noncommittal. He hadn't known that, actually. "Well, I have. But it never took. I switched back, every time. And every time it's harder – I mean it hurts, yes, growing a decade in such a short time, but turning back is worse. Every time, I think: maybe this is it. Maybe this time I'll just lose my mind." Conan fiddled with the cap on the tube. "I don't know if I could stand to have this not work. Better to find out on my own so I can—" Conan's breath caught in his throat. He was saying more than he had intended, but he couldn't stop. "—so I can put myself back together. Or not," he finished, very quietly.

"Kudo Shinichi," Kaito said, smoothly rising to his feet. "That's exactly the kind of thing you _don't_ want to be alone for. Putting yourself back together – if you have to, _if_ it comes to that – may seem impossible. But it's easier with help. Help you trust." He held out a hand to Conan. "Come on."

Conan stared at the offered hand for a few moments, then up at KID. " _Can_ I trust you, KID?"

"You shouldn't." KID's knife-sharp smile softened. "But you can."

"That's what I figured." Conan reached out to KID's open hand, but instead of taking it, he dropped the cap to the autoinjector into it. In the split second it took KID to figure out what he'd been handed, Conan had jabbed the pen into his own thigh, ejecting the contents of the tube into his body.

KID dropped the cap and snatched the injector away – far too late. Conan had just enough time to smirk up at him before his eyes rolled up and he fell backward on the bed, limp.

"Shit," KID swore softly. He leaned over Conan and felt for his pulse. It was there, and strong. He seemed to be breathing deeply. "Okay, okay, we'll just– gah!" Conan convulsed suddenly, sending KID skittering backward instinctively. Conan's eyes had closed, mercifully, but now he was curled in on himself, every muscle tense. Then, just as suddenly, he relaxed back onto the bed again, breathing deeply but more rapidly now. His tiny hands were opening and closing, trying to get some purchase on the blanket.

"Right, fuck this," Kaito muttered to himself. Help wasn't far. He'd just scoop up Conan and be off.

But the moment he got one arm under Conan's shoulders and the other under his knees and began to lift, Conan cried out and thrashed. Kaito hurriedly put him back on the bed and he rolled away with a barely audible whimper, shivering uncontrollably. As the body Kaito had held so briefly had been burning up, this was worrying.

Kaito braced himself and rifled through Conan's pockets as quickly as possible. This meant that he had to nudge him slightly to get to some of them, since Conan was curled on his side, and every time he put any sort of pressure on his skin Conan would let out a low, pitiful moan and try weakly to get away. Kaito gritted his teeth and did it anyway, because he needed – ah, there. Conan's phone. He could call Haibara.

It was password protected, but of course KID had done his recon before the last heist and... and Conan had changed the password since then. Paranoid little bastard, when had he had time? Fine. He'd use his own phone and call a damn ambulance.

Before he could dial, though, a small hand shot up and gripped his wrist with surprising strength.

"Don't... you... dare," Conan gasped out, still shaking.

"Oh, I definitely dare," Kaito muttered.

"KID— ahh!" Conan cut himself off with a sharp cry of pain, hand leaving Kaito's wrist to clench over his own heart. "Kaito," he gasped. "Please. This – this is normal. It's always – hnngh – like this." This wave of pain seemed to recede slightly and Conan reached out again, blindly. Kaito grabbed his hand without really thinking about it and Conan looked up at him. "Trust me?"

Kaito hesitated. He hesitated for a long moment, holding a burning hot hand in his own, until Conan was forced to break eye contact when the pain made him squeeze his eyes shut. "Oh, fuck," Kaito whispered. He put the phone in his pocket. "Okay. Okay. What can I do?"

But Conan was already lost to the pain again, writhing on the bed. Even as Kaito watched, he seemed to _throb_ – and then Kaito realized: he was _growing_. The eight-year-old might now be a ten-year-old. And his clothes weren't growing with him. Conan clawed at the collar of his shirt and Kaito leapt to help him with all the efficiency of a stage manager with a cue to hit. With his talent for quick costume changes and complete disregard for modesty, Kaito had Conan – who was looking more and more like Shinichi every moment – free of his clothes in a jiffy.

And that was easily the least awkward part of his morning.

 

The pain was like a living thing. It had lodged itself deep in his belly where it coiled like a snake, dripping venom into his blood, into his bones. With every other beat of his heart, it thrashed, trying to expand, trying to make room for itself. And Shinichi's body gave way. It let the snake release coils into his limbs, into his lungs, around his heart. Fire shot up his spine and into his head, then dripped like molten lava down his skin so that the lightest touch was completely unbearable. A moment later it froze to ice and left him shaking so hard it hurt – only to thaw into blistering heat over and over again.

It was possible he screamed. He didn't know. The pain whited out all senses. This had been stupid – what had he been thinking – KID had been right – KID had... KID... Kaito...

The pain only got worse from there and his brain went offline to protect itself, leaving Shinichi's ravaged body to handle the rest of the process on its own. Consciousness tried to reassert itself a few times, but any time Shinichi came close to comprehending the deep, splitting ache in his bones or the tearing of his muscles, his mind would shy away back down the rabbit hole, leaving him with odd, swimming impressions of the whole process: the low murmur of a voice; a fuzzy glimpse of his own feet, much further away than he'd become accustomed to; steady hands supporting him, putting something cold on his forehead; and then back into the blessed relief of darkness and unknowingness.

Finally, though, his brain awoke and found the pain to be bearable – which is to say, he only felt like he'd been mauled by a bear rather than the entire animal population of an African savannah. Desperate to focus on anything other than how much he hurt, Shinichi scrambled to process other inputs.

The first thing he noticed was that he was lying on something very hard. The second was that he was wet. And also cold. He opened his eyes – his eyelids were just about the only part of him that didn't hurt – and found himself staring up into the face of Kaito KID.

"Hey," Shinichi said eloquently. His voice came out rough and cracked.

"Oh, thank God," Kaito exhaled and wilted noticeably. He was kneeling over Shinichi, who was surprised to find himself in a bathtub. His bathtub, specifically. Curious. "You complete and utter _ass_." Kaito said. He pressed his forehead into the edge of the tub. Somewhere along the way, he had lost his baseball cap and jacket. "I am never listening to you again."

Shinichi lifted one arm slowly. He was intending to grab the edge of the tub and pull himself up, but grasping seemed to be beyond him just now. So he just let his hand fall onto Kaito's head.

"There, there," he said.

"Are you fucking kidding me with this right now." Kaito picked up his head and Shinichi's hand fell back into the tub, landing with a dull thump near his hip. His eyes tracked it and in the process noted something distressing enough to clear away some of the mental fog. He was cold and wet, yes, but also, it would appear, completely naked. He felt a blush bloom in his cheeks and spread rapidly to his ears and down his neck. Kaito noticed immediately, but instead of the teasing Shinichi would have expected, his reaction was one of panic.

"What?" Kaito demanded, rising on his knees, eyes sweeping Shinichi's body for the source of his distress – which of course only made him redden faster. "Is the fever back? Are you overheated?"

"No!" Shinichi snapped. Somewhat more motivated this time, he managed to sit up and had even almost gotten his feet under him when the slickness of the tub betrayed him and he found himself falling back without the muscle control to stop himself.

Kaito's hands flashed out and grabbed him by the shoulders, stopping him from cracking his head against the back of the tub. Shinichi covered Kaito's hands with his own, breathing heavily both with the effort of getting himself into a sitting position, and from – well. Kaito's long, deft fingers were digging into his shoulders and those wide, blue eyes were very, very close.

"Towel," Shinichi croaked, dropping his hands away from Kaito's.

"What?"

"Towel. In the cabinet."

Kaito got to his feet in such a way that told Shinichi he'd been kneeling by the tub for a while. He fetched a towel quickly, obviously reluctant to take his eyes off of Shinichi lest he topple over or manage to endanger himself in some other way over the course of a few seconds.

Shinichi tucked the towel around his hips as best he could while sitting in a bathtub, pointedly ignoring Kaito's eye roll when he figured out what had been causing Shinichi's distress.

"Okay. Now clothes. Then food. Then... then we'll figure the rest out."

 

Shinichi only made it out of the tub and back to his room with Kaito's help. His muscles felt like he'd just run a marathon or two and he could barely stumble, let alone walk. They made agonizing progress toward Shinichi's room, his arm slung across Kaito's shoulder for balance and support and Kaito's hand gentle around his waist. Neither of these things was helping his heart rate any.

"Why am I wet?" Shinichi mumbled, trying to distract himself. He barely had the strength to pick up his head, so he didn't see the slightly worried look Kaito gave him.

"Work it out, tantei-kun," Kaito said, his voice carefully light.

Shinichi was silent for a few steps. "Of course," he said. "You were trying to keep my fever down." Obvious. His brain was apparently still catching up, just like his body.

"For which you are welcome," Kaito said as they finally made it into the bedroom. "And for which, I might point out, you definitely needed someone's help."

Shinichi grabbed whatever clothes first fell to hand and Kaito made a show of ostentatiously turning away while Shinichi began the painfully slow process of dressing himself. "Point taken," he said. The simple act of pulling on pants and a shirt exhausted him and when he finally did up the last button he flopped back on his bed, boneless.

"I think the words you're looking for are _'You were right, Kaito.'_ or maybe _'I was wrong, Kaito.'_ or possibly _'From now on I'll do whatever you say, Kaito.'_ "

Shinichi snorted. A granola bar bounced off his chest a second later. Shinichi glanced a question at Kaito even as he tore into it.

"I come prepared," Kaito said with a shrug. "But you're going to need something more substantial than that soon." Shinichi just nodded, having stuffed the entire thing into his mouth at once. He had a good view of the window from where he lay on the bed. It had stopped storming, but was still quite dark out. Way less time had passed than he thought; it had been perhaps an hour since he'd stolen the cure from Haibara's lab. It felt like a day, at least.

"That means you're going to have to get up," Kaito clarified.

"Sure. Maybe tomorrow."

"Maybe _now_ ," Kaito insisted. "You need a doctor to look you over. You need real food. You need to explain to Ran what happened to the kid she's supposed to be taking care of." He plucked his jacket from the floor where he'd tossed it at some point and put it back on, looking expectantly at Shinichi.

"Mmmhmm," Shinichi agreed. He then proceeded to stare at the ceiling some more.

 

And that was why Kudo Shinichi arrived back at Agasa's house thrown over the shoulder of Kaito KID, protesting weakly all the way.

He only finally convinced Kaito to put him down once they were actually in the house just down the hall from the observatory (having entered via window, KID's aversion to doors remaining firmly intact).

"You're a lot heavier now, tantei-kun," KID said pleasantly, kneeling to let Shinichi get his feet under him.

"What a shame. Looks like you'll have to get out of the habit of just picking me up and moving me whenever it's convenient," Shinichi retorted, straightening his clothes. He glanced up the hall at the light pouring out from the observatory. By rights everyone should be asleep, but by the sound of it most of them were in there.

"Aw, you do care," he heard Duo say distinctly. There was a pause. Then, Heero's quieter voice.

"Regardless, we should tell Conan."

KID nudged Shinichi. "Go on! That's the perfect entrance line."

Shinichi shook his head, but stepped into the doorway anyway.

"Actually, I'm afraid no one is going to be telling Conan anything ever again," he said. There was far more satisfaction in his voice than he'd expected, but it hit him suddenly: he was _free_. He was standing here looking _down_ at Haibara, wearing his own clothes, speaking with his own voice.

The others turned to stare at him, surprised by his sudden appearance. Then it was his turn to stare, because in the middle of the lab, hanging in midair, was a window, through which he could see a slim Chinese man and a tall white guy who'd taken an emo hairstyle to extremes staring back at him with some interest.

"You _idiot_ ," Haibara said scathingly, breaking the silence.

"Ah – hey, Haibara," Shinichi said, having the grace to sound a tad sheepish.

"Tell me you're KID," Haibara demanded, advancing on Shinichi.

"Uh, wha—"

"You have to be. Because there is _no way_ Edogawa-kun would be so _colossally_ stupid as to do something like break into a lab and start _sampling chemicals._ So I'm certain you're actually KID disguised as Shinichi, _right_?!"

"Uh... not... as such..." Shinichi said, backing out of the doorway. He looked around for support from KID, but was not entirely surprised to find the thief had vanished.

"You are coming with me. You are going to tell me everything in excruciating detail while I examine you." Haibara grabbed him by the sleeve, then turned back to glare at Duo and Heero. "And you two! Don't you dare go anywhere until I've had a chance to check this moron for defects. Other than the obvious ones."

"Yes ma'am!" Duo said. Heero just blinked slowly at her, which she took for assent.

 

KID turned back up after Haibara had calmed down considerably and she, Agasa, and Shinichi were all sitting in the living room discussing what to tell Ran. Shinichi was pretty sure he'd done that on purpose, though he did note a few small changes to KID's clothing. And he was now carrying a backpack. Shinichi narrowed his eyes slightly but didn't lose the thread of the conversation as KID flopped onto the couch next to him.

Luckily, Ran had spent the night last night at Sonoko's. She hadn't been going to but Conan had been "on the mend" and insisted that he was fine, so she left him in Mouri's care. The plan as of this moment was to tell her that Conan had taken a turn for the worse in the night and had ended up needing to go to the hospital, where his parents rushed in and decided to take him immediately back to America for his health.

"This isn't ideal," Haibara said. "She's going to feel incredibly guilty. And what about her father? He won't corroborate the story."

"Oh yes he will," Shinichi said. "Just tell it so that he sounds like a hero – like he was the one who noticed Conan's symptoms getting worse and got in touch with Agasa to call Conan's parents and get Conan to the hospital. He'll just assume he fell asleep again and solved the problem."

"That still leaves Ran-kun."

"Maybe a phone call from Conan?" Shinichi hazarded. The voice-changing bow tie was laid out on a coffee table along with all of his other gadgets. The anesthetic watch had adjusted enough to fit his wrist, but he was trying to figure out whether the others should be repurposed into different, more convenient items.

"Have you tried, I don't know, telling her the truth?" KID suggested.

"I'd rather not," Shinichi said, crossing his arms. "Not until we take out the Organization. It's too dangerous."

KID gave a prodigious eye roll. " _Please_. You think she's not going to be in danger the moment the Organization gets wind that Kudo Shinichi isn't nearly as dead as they thought? Isn't it better if she knows exactly what she could be dealing with? Unless of course you were planning to stay in hiding..."

Shinichi scowled. He definitely was done hiding, and KID knew it.

"KID's right," Haibara said, and Agasa nodded, sealing Shinichi's fate. He dropped his face into his hands.

"She's gonna kill me."

"Probably," said KID cheerfully. "Now then, about Ayumi-chan and the others..."

Shinichi groaned and folded forward until his face, still covered by his hands, was basically resting on his knees.

"Relax," Kaito said with a laugh. "I was just going to say that the original plan would probably do fine for them. Especially with Miss Haibara here to smooth things over," he concluded with his most charming smile.

"Oh yes," Haibara said seriously. "I'm sure they'll get over it quick enough. Especially if a certain famous detective were to take them under his wing," she said pointedly.

"...Hattori?" Shinichi said hopefully, peeking up from his knees.

"Not who I had in mind."

"Hakuba?"

KID snorted.

"Kudo-kun..." Haibara said testily.

"Fine, fine. Easier than telling Ran I've been lying to her for two years," he muttered, unfolding himself with a deep sigh. "Which I _will_ do. But not right now. I need... I mean, what if this isn't permanent?" His tone didn't change, but Kaito didn't fail to notice the stiffening of his shoulders and the fingers digging ever so slightly into his thigh.

"You have until she gets home from school," Haibara said.

Stiff shoulders hunched. The fingers dug a little deeper. "I know. It's not ideal."

"Well maybe next time you'll _think_ before dosing yourself with untested drugs!"

Shinichi paled considerably. "Right. Next time..." he said faintly.

Suddenly a flurry of wingbeats and a commotion of feathers filled the air. Everyone except KID let out startled exclamations and flung their arms up as a dozen white doves filled the space between them as chaotically as possible.

"Oh good heavens, what _can_ have gotten into them," KID said loudly. "Give me just a moment and I'll have them in hand." He stood, but turned and leaned over Shinichi. "That's your cue to go, tantei-kun. We'll work this out later," he said in a voice inaudible to anyone else over the noise of the ostensibly panicking doves. Shinichi gave KID a startled look, then nodded and slipped around him and toward the stairs while KID made an absolute mess of getting his perfectly trained birds under control.

Once safely up the stairs and around the corner Shinichi leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and took a few deep breaths. He was fine. He'd been fine for... well, for not very long now. Twenty-four hours was the mark to beat. Until then, he'd be tense and nervous, hyper-aware of every tiny twinge in his body, constantly expecting to snap back or wake up. Coming up with a reasonable explanation for Conan's disappearance was important, but he was a mess. He needed a distraction, something for his mind to work on other than worrying.

He looked around hopefully, but when no corpse immediately presented itself, he settled for heading for the observatory where Duo and Heero were still camped with the bizarre window to the future.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra update to celebrate the halfway point (I know the chapter count says 21, but there are in fact 19 chapters, an epilogue, and a post-credits scene. So not counting those last two, half way through this chapter is halfway to 19!) Also, there is supposedly an impressive storm rolling in as I type this, so it seemed apropos.
> 
> NEXT CONAN'S HINT!  
> "That... seems bad."


	10. In Which Evolutionary Linguistics is Discussed and Research is Conduc— no wait come back it's interesting I promise!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Made an extra update this week, so make sure you've read Chapter 9 first if you somehow missed that :)

KID had bundled the doves off to a safe roost, made sure his backpack was well-packed and snug on his shoulders, and then ventured up to Agasa's observatory to see what he could see. He was now watching Shinichi unobserved. It wasn't that he was using any fancy tricks or illusions; he was simply leaning in the doorway, not making a sound. Shinichi was just so involved in the impossible window and the conversation happening across centuries that he hadn't noticed KID appear there.

KID didn't mind. He needed to refamiliarize himself with his detective. He had to keep reminding himself that Shinichi hadn't actually changed – this was who he'd been all along. KID had _known_ that, of course, but it was one thing to logically know that your nemesis was an eighteen-year-old trapped in a child's body and another to see the eighteen-year-old first hand. He'd known what Shinichi had looked like – he'd looked him up as soon as he'd figured it out, years ago, of course, and had been thoroughly delighted to find that impersonating the detective would be one of the easiest disguises to create (though, he would find, altogether more complicated to execute).

But as many pictures as he'd looked at, none of them really captured what the detective was like in action. He moved _differently_ than Conan – conserved his movements more, didn't have to expend as much energy to do simple things. There was more confidence there, too.

The eyes were the same, though it was strange seeing them without the glasses. KID watched Shinichi run his hands all along the frame of the window, duck under it, and poke his head around the side to ask Duo a question. KID shoved his hands in his pockets. He wasn't much given to restraint when it came to things he wanted to touch and he wanted to completely _deconstruct_ Shinichi. The next heist was going to be... interesting.

KID realized with a start that he wasn't the only one observing. He found himself the object of Heero's steady gaze. He'd been distracted. How long had Heero been watching him stare at Shinichi? He grinned at Heero and gave him a little wave. Heero's only reaction was to turn back to the window to pay attention to something the people on the other side were telling him.

"Oh, KID," Shinichi said, stepping out from behind the window. His eyes darted quickly to the hallway behind KID.

"Miss Haibara and the old man are still downstairs," KID said, correctly interpreting the glance. _Because I told them to back off,_ he finished mentally.

"Well they might want to get up here," Duo said. "Heero and I are outta here soon and I wouldn't mind saying thanks for giving us a place to crash in this century." Heero nodded and slid past KID, presumably to fetch them. KID scowled.

"So soon?" Shinichi asked. "There's so much I could ask you—"

"And so much we probably shouldn't tell you," Duo said cheerfully, slinging an arm around Shinichi's shoulders. "But hey, I'm glad we could help out before taking off. You two give those Organization guys hell from us, yeah?"

"Oh, don't worry about _that_ ," KID said, pulling out one of his sharper smiles.

"But..." Shinichi trailed off, looking through the window where Wufei was waiting with his arms crossed, all but tapping his foot in impatience. Shinichi's eyes narrowed and KID could practically see the wheels spinning behind them. KID could guess what he was thinking because he himself had thought the same thing a hundred times since this adventure began: if the Organization _had_ been the ones to start all of this in the future, then was there any point to anything he and Shinichi did to stop them here in the present?

At that moment Heero returned with Agasa and Haibara. He was already shaking Agasa's hand, having presumably said anything he was going to say on the way up. Duo said his goodbyes to both while Shinichi leaned against the counter casting dark looks at the window to the future.

"Wait a second," KID said. "How exactly is this going to work?"

"They're literally just going to reach through and grab us," Duo said with a grin.

"The portal only recognizes input from the future side," Heero clarified. "But it also isn't sophisticated enough to differentiate between continuous objects. Technically, it changes size. It only exists in this century around whatever is coming through, so we're using the window frame as a guideline, even though the portal doesn't recognize the opening. But as long as there's no break between whatever is reaching here from the future and anything they pick up in the past, the portal will let it through."

"How do you _know_?" KID pressed.

"We tested it on a few things – which, by the way, congrats professor, your Masked Yaiba mouse mat has now been to the future and back," Duo said. "Plus, if Quatre says it's going to work, it's going to work."

Quatre was still sitting with his back to the portal, apparently unresponsive to anything else happening while the Zero system fed him statistics and calculations.

"Oh, good." KID said. "Well, then, it's been fun. Do drop in again sometime – though, maybe not quite as literally."

"Heero," Shinichi said. "Thank you. Really. Without you – well, never mind. Just thanks."

Heero nodded. Haibara looked like she was going to say something but decided against it. It could wait.

In the future, Wufei was signaling for their attention. When he had it, he carefully opened the window even wider until those standing in 2015 couldn't actually see him anymore. Then his hand and Trowa's stretched out of nothing.

Duo grinned back at Agasa, Haibara, KID, and Shinichi. "Bye!" he said simply, and clasped Wufei's wrist. Wufei in turn gripped Duo's, and Trowa and Heero did the same, and the two pilots were drawn slowly into the future.

KID's fingers closed around Shinichi's wrist. When Shinichi looked up at him, startled, he just winked.

Then he was tugging Shinichi forward, reaching, grasping Duo's wrist just before it vanished through the invisible tear in reality. Then reality stretched and everything went completely dark and the only thing Kaito was aware of was hanging on to both wrists as he himself was pulled in opposite directions through a true void. But a magician's hands are strong and deft and he did not let go and just when he thought the pressure and lack of light and lack of air might kill him, reality came crashing back down around him – followed shortly by Shinichi, who collided with his back and sent both of them sprawling onto the floor of the room they had seen from the observatory. The room several centuries in their future.

"What the _hell_?!" Duo demanded. He had extricated himself from Kaito's grip and was glaring down at both of them.

"Don't look at _me_!" Shinichi exclaimed, scrambling to his feet. "KID, what the hell?"

KID rose with somewhat more dignity, dusting himself off as he did so. He opened his mouth to provide an explanation, but before he could say anything Shinichi was tackling him right back down to the ground as the echo of a gunshot rang in everyone's ears.

The bullet ricocheted and sparks flew from somewhere as Trowa grabbed Quatre from behind and forced the hand holding the gun toward the ceiling. Wufei and Heero both pulled guns of their own and trained them on Quatre as Duo grabbed his wrist to force the gun out of his hand.

"The enemy!" Quatre snarled. "I can't— Trowa, you— ah..." Trowa had got Quatre into a sleeper hold and he finally went limp. Duo plucked the gun out of his hand while Trowa lowered Quatre gently to the ground and began peeling off the electrodes still attached to his head. Wufei and Heero put away their own weapons.

"Um... tantei-kun..." KID said. Shinichi was still sprawled across him, though his attention was on the Gundam pilots. KID winced as a shower of sparks fell uncomfortably close to his head. "It's probably okay to get up now."

Shinichi looked down as though startled to see KID there, then backed off of him and offered a hand up, which he accepted gracefully.

"You've been in this century two seconds and already managed to get shot at," Shinichi said in a low, disbelieving voice.

"Oh, don't worry. It looks like you'll have plenty of time to catch up," KID said.

"What?" Shinichi followed KID's gaze. While he'd been watching the pilots, KID had been looking in the other direction, at the portal that was now flickering and spitting sparks intermittently. The window, which had been supported by metal struts on this side of the portal, was smoking slightly and the only thing that could be seen through the glass was the back wall of this room. "That... seems bad."

"Truly you are a credit to your profession," KID murmured. Shinichi slugged him in the arm.

"All right, you two. Explanation time," Wufei said, crossing his arms and glaring.

"I agree," Shinichi said lightly. "You can start with why your friend there opened fire."

Wufei looked like he would rather swallow his own tongue than answer their questions before they answered his. Luckily, Heero spoke up.

"It's the Zero System. It enhances a person's ability to assess a situation and execute a mission with the highest probability of success. But the influx of data can be... overwhelming."

"As in, hallucinations and temporary psychosis," Duo said, coming to stand next to Heero. "We've seen it before."

At that moment, Quatre stirred on the floor with a slight moan. Shinichi and KID both tensed, but Duo, Heero, and Wufei seemed perfectly relaxed. Trowa, kneeling on the floor next to Quatre, actually moved closer to him.

"Trowa..." Quatre mumbled before his eyes were even open. Then, "Trowa!" His eyes flew open and his hand shot out. Trowa caught it without missing a beat and pulled Quatre into a sitting position, one arm around his back for support.

"Right here. I'm fine. Everyone's fine," he said, interlacing his fingers with Quatre's.

"Thank God," Quatre said. His eyes darted around the room, counting faces, skittering to a stop on Shinichi's and Kaito's. "Did I... Are you okay?!" He scrambled to his feet and Trowa let him, staying close just in case. Kaito and Shinichi took a simultaneous step backward, toward the still-sparking portal and Quatre drew up short, hands raised. "Right. Sorry. You're all right, though. But _that's_ not," he said with a serious frown at the damaged equipment behind them. Then he shook his head and turned a broad smile on Duo and Heero. "But that doesn't matter – you're back! It worked, and you made it back!" He threw his arms around both of them in a hug, which Duo returned, laughing, and which Heero endured.

"I feel like we were just attacked by a baby panda," KID whispered to Shinichi. "And I do not know how to react to that."

"Sorry, I'm more focused on the part where the portal is broken and we're _stuck_ here," Shinichi hissed back.

"Wait," Quatre said, turning back toward them. "Where did you two come from?"

"More like _when_ ," KID said delicately.

"The twenty-first century," Shinichi said with a sigh. "Apparently."

"And that is officially classified information," Wufei said, stepping into the middle of the room. "Lady Une is coming here to handle the debrief personally and no one is setting foot out of this room until they've spoken with her. Got it?"

Shinichi saw the gleam in KID eye that said he took that as a challenge and grabbed his wrist preemptively. "Don't even think about it." KID gave Shinichi's grip on him a pitying glance and raised his eyebrows at Shinichi.

 _As if that could stop me_.

But out loud, he simply smiled, shrugged, and said "Got it."

 

Over the course of waiting for Lady Une to arrive, Shinichi determined that Quatre was the most dangerous person in the room. Kaito, of course, had decided to become friends with him. He had convinced Quatre that the best way to pass the time would be to have him show Kaito around AC's version of the internet. As a linguistic experiment, Kaito assured him.

Quatre, it seemed, not only had difficulty telling anyone "no," but also really enjoyed helping people, and so they were bent together over a screen while Kaito tried to read future-Japanese and playfully asked Quatre to correct his accent. Shinichi narrowed his eyes.

"Hey," Duo said.

Shinichi started slightly and directed his attention down to the floor where Duo and Heero were seated with their backs against a console. Wufei had been barking orders pretty consistently to a pair of Preventers stationed just outside the room ever since Quatre had disengaged from the Zero system. They had brought food, water, and a large Preventers jacket for Heero, who had managed to make it back to the future wearing exactly one pair of jeans, a few bandages around his still-healing fingers, and nothing else. Duo had shoved him into a sitting position and basically force-fed him food and liquids, keeping up a steady commentary the whole while, which Shinichi had tuned out. But now Duo was gesturing him down to sit with them. Shinichi cast a last dubious look at Kaito and Quatre and obliged.

"Look, Une's gonna be here soon, so I wanna make sure you got your story straight," Duo said.

"My story? I was just going to go with the truth."

"And what's that?"

 _That a crazy magician thief dragged me through a portal to the future against my will, probably so that we can take out a century-spanning crime syndicate and avoid losing our minds in the present._ Okay, maybe not the _whole_ truth. Duo nodded at his hesitation.

"Lady Une's a hard case, but she works within the law. The less threatening you look, the more freedom you're going to have here," he advised.

"Threatening?"

"Let me put it this way: you just want to get back home. This whole thing is some crazy mix-up. But as long as you're here, you're willing to do exactly what she says, got it?"

"Ah, I see. I have no ulterior motives. Got it. But I think you might be talking to the wrong time-traveler," Shinichi said, glancing over at Kaito, who seemed to have discovered some French-language sites and was reading with a little more intent now.

"Pretty sure that guy's gonna land on his feet no matter what," Duo said with a snort. "'Specially if Quatre likes him."

Shinichi didn't get a chance to respond because at that moment Lady Une finally walked in. Wufei flanked her at once as she cast cold eyes around the room, taking in Kaito, Shinichi, the damaged portal, and Heero's injuries with equal calm. Shinichi noticed Kaito assessing her exactly the same way, though more covertly.

Then she sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose under her glasses, and gestured at Heero. "Okay, one at a time. You first, so you can get to medical. Then Maxwell."

So it went. Shinichi was fourth, after Kaito, and tried not to stress too much during that time. Kaito knew how to talk to law enforcement. He didn't have anything to worry about.

When it was finally his turn, he nearly ran out the door.

Une had set up shop at a small portable table just outside the lab where the portal was. She had a computer and several case files with her. There were just two other Preventers guards in the room, and no sign of Duo, Heero, or Kaito.

"Where's—" Shinichi started to ask, but then realized he had no idea what name KID was using. "Uh, everyone?" he finished lamely. She raised her eyebrows at him and gestured to the folding chair across the table from her.

"Don't worry about them for now. I need to get your statement."

"Statement? Are you guys the police?"

"Close enough."

Shinichi wondered briefly about jurisdiction and local authority over someone who, in this time, was legally dead, but decided not to push it. He sat down. "What do you want to know?"

Not everything, as it turned out. She had some very particular questions about the Organization as it existed in the twenty-first century, which Shinichi answered carefully to avoid getting into the whole "I got turned into an eight-year-old" mess. She slowed him down and asked him to repeat or rephrase things more frequently when he talked about Heero's abduction. He left out entirely the part about using Heero's blood to create a cure for himself, and she didn't ask, so either everyone had decided to keep that part private or she simply did not care. Then, she was done. It had taken hardly any time at all.

"All right, that's all I need. You'll be assigned quarters at the nearest Preventers base. Someone will escort you there shortly," she said in clear tones of dismissal.

"Wait," Shinichi protested. "I'm just supposed to sit around? What about getting home? Or helping?"

"You are a detective, Mr. Kudo. Not an engineer, correct?"

"Well—"

"And as such I imagine you will not be much help in repairing a portal to the past, the likes of which did not even exist a week ago. Or, from your perspective, will not exist for several centuries."

"Well no, but you just pointed out – I'm a detective." He got to his feet and spread his hands on the table, eager. "Let me help with the Organization. The Clubs."

"As far as you're concerned, they don't exist," Une snapped.

"Why—"

"Look at it from _my_ perspective," Une said, maintaining her patience with a visible effort. "I don't know you. You are a random complication in my operation. All I have is your word, and the word of two freelancers who have known you only days, that you are who and what you say you are. So why in the _galaxy_ would I trust you?"

Shinichi sat back down. "Okay," he said slowly. "Google me."

" _What_?"

"Look me up. I lived in your past, and I'm a damn good detective. I'm sure there's something."

"You're awfully confident in your future self," Lady Une said, leaning forward with a soft smile that was _incredibly_ unnerving.

"What?"

"Say I look you up. You know that everything you've done up until this point has been admirable, or you wouldn't suggest it." Light flashed off of Une's glasses as she adjusted them. "But say we get you back to your time period. You have a whole future ahead of you. How do you know you won't... misstep at some point? Get tangled up with the wrong people? Be condemned for a crime even though you were trying to do the right thing? Would you really trust your fate here to whatever history has chosen to remember you for?"

"Uh..."

"That was rhetorical. You don't have a choice. Tanaka, take him back to base," she ordered, already closing her notes on his statement. The summoned guard took Shinichi by the arm – not particularly roughly, but without room for argument – and marched him out the door.

To Shinichi's immense relief, KID was waiting with a guard of his own in the hallway. He brightened immediately when he saw Shinichi.

"Guess what, tantei-kun? We get to be roommates!"

 

Their quarters were tiny. There was a desk and chair on the left wall (no computer), bunk beds on the right, and just enough room to lie down between them if you pointed your feet at the door. On the back wall was the door to a small bathroom. There were no windows.

KID claimed the top bunk _instantly_ , disappearing in a poof smoke and reappearing crouched on the bed, trying not to hit his head. "Mine," he said, peering down at Shinichi.

"Whatever," Shinichi said, sliding into his own bed. He discovered that the wall was actually made up of recessed compartments that opened when he pressed them, all containing items of Preventers-brand clothing. It was all about on par with the average high school gym uniform, but hey, at least they wouldn't be stuck in their own clothes for... however long they were going to be here.

"Hey KID—"

" _Kaito_ ," Kaito said, flopping over the edge of his bed to give Shinichi a reproving upside-down look. "That's the name I gave them. Bringing KID into things here might... confuse the issue, don't you think? He tends to make headlines."

"Are you telling me you don't have a bespoke white suit and top hat in that knapsack of yours?"

"...Noooo..."

"Right."

"What if there's an emergency?!"

"And you came prepared for emergencies. When you decided to _drag me through a portal into the future_." It came out with a little more venom than Shinichi had intended and Kaito tumbled himself off the top bunk, landing in a crouch next to Shinichi's bed.

"You were thinking it as much as I was, Kudo-kun: if the Organization's still _here_ , then what's the point of anything we do _there_? Don't tell me you could live without knowing."

Shinichi sighed. "No. I always want to know." He flopped back onto the somewhat flat, regulation-issue pillow. "But what can we do now, like this?"

"As for that," Kaito said with a sparkling grin. "Scoot over." Without waiting, he rolled into Shinichi's bunk, ignoring Shinichi's protests as he ran into the wall trying to make room. "Look what I found~" Kaito held up a phone.

"Is that – a smartphone?" Shinichi asked, forgetting the close quarters and laying shoulder-to-shoulder with Kaito, who was holding the screen up so they could both see.

"More or less. It has an internet connection. Fancy a bit of research?"

"Hell ye— wait. Where did you... _Please_ tell me this is not Lady Une's phone."

Kaito looked vaguely insulted. "Tantei-kun. Stealing Lady Une's phone would be extremely foolish. _This_ is Quatre Raberba Winner's phone. Much nicer."

"You don't think he's going to notice it's missing?"

"He'll forgive me. If he ever finds out it was me. Now do you want to get caught up on what we missed the past few centuries or not?"

He did.

It was slow going and honestly, Shinichi was not much help. Neither he nor Kaito could make out much from Japanese-language sites and articles and English was right out after several centuries of wanton linguistic evolution. Kaito eventually resorted to French sites, as the language had been rigidly controlled to the point where it was still quite easy for Kaito to read. Less so for Shinichi, and as the hour grew later and his eyes began to ache, he found himself dozing off, waking only briefly when Kaito would share some interesting tidbit.

"Kudo... Hey, Kudo-kun, are you asleep?" Kaito asked, disbelieving, despite the fact that Shinichi had, in fact, been mostly asleep on his shoulder for at least an hour.

"Shinshi," Shinichi mumbled.

"What?"

"There's no..." Shinichi trailed off, eyes still closed, and waved his hand vaguely. "You know. They all use given names here. No..." He interrupted himself with a jaw-cracking yawn. "Honorifics. So you should call me Shinichi." This little speech was entirely slurred by sleep.

"All right," Kaito said, with what even he knew had to be a goofy smile down at the detective who didn't seem to realize that he was about a millimeter away from something that might technically be called cuddling. "Then you should call me Kaito."

"I _already_ call you Kaito."

"Then I guess you should know it's my given name."

"Oh," Shinichi said with a deep exhale. He was quiet and still for so long that Kaito wondered if his revelation had even registered. Then, " _What?!_ " Shinichi sat up with a start, almost cracking his head on the top bunk, and put a hand flat in the middle of Kaito's chest both to steady himself and ensure that Kaito wasn't going anywhere. "Did you just say... That's your real name?!"

"Kuroba Kaito," Kaito said quietly. "Pleased to meet you."

"Why... would you _tell_ me that? Or – am I dreaming?"

"You dream about me often, tantei-kun?" Kaito asked, lowering his lashes demurely.

"Stop changing the subject."

"Well you have to call me _something_ ," Kaito said with a huff. "And this..." He gestured around the tight confines of the bunk, somehow encompassing the whole of AC 198 with a sweep of the phone he still clutched in that hand. "This is a little beyond our usual gameboard. The chips are down. I have to trust someone. I pick you."

"That's..." Shinichi was at a loss for words. He eased off Kaito and leaned back with a sigh so that they were lying side by side again – though with the narrowness of the bunk there was a little overlap. "Well, thanks. I mean, you can. Trust me," he said awkwardly.

"Good. Now that we've established that we are all very trustworthy individuals in this bunk, let me explain what I've learned about the shape of the world we've found ourselves in – and where I think the Organization might fit in."

 

Shinichi lasted about fifteen minutes before dozing off again. It wasn't that he wasn't interested, just that he was that much more tired. Kaito saw him fading and let him go. He _had_ been intending to return to his own bunk tonight, possibly even sneak out of the room (They weren't _prisoners,_ of course. A Preventer agent standing just outside their door would be happy to take them wherever they needed to go.) and do a little recon, but Shinichi looked so... comfortable. Anyway, he had to admit the spot he was in wasn't unpleasant either.

And that is how Kudo Shinichi spent his first night restored to his own body. Despite being in an unfamiliar century, with no sure way of getting home, and no clue as to what might happen next, it was his most restful sleep in years.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay look guys, I'm a Hufflepuff and we're all about fair play. It's totally not fair to drag characters from one fandom into another without doing the reverse as well, SO! Here we are. Get ready for some AC shenanigans!
> 
> NEXT CONAN'S HINT!  
> "You're just mad we blew up your camera,"


	11. In Which the Phrase "Phone Tag" Gains New Meaning

A gentle knock at the door woke both Kaito and Shinichi instantly. Kaito was on his feet in a moment, leaving Shinichi to press his face into the pillow with a groan of protest at the early hour. The fact that Kaito had ended up sleeping on top of one of his arms, leaving it as asleep as Shinichi would still like to be, wasn't helping matters.

Kaito cast a glance back at Shinichi to make sure he was at least somewhat aware, waited for him to flap an arm bonelessly in blessing, slipped a hand into his own pocket just in case something sudden was needed, and opened the door.

"Ha. Told ya." Duo said with a snort upon seeing Kaito on the other side of the door. He, Trowa, and Quatre were standing in the hallway.

"Um, sorry, Kaito, it's just – I lost my phone last night and it looks like it's... in there?" Quatre said, all apology. He held up another phone, identical to the one Kaito had taken off him, that showed what was clearly a tracking application onscreen.

"Oh, dear," Kaito said. "I must have walked off with it by mistake." He produced the phone and handed it over to Quatre completely unabashed.

"It's okay," Quatre said cheerfully. "Did you learn anything?"

"Uh–"

"Actually, come to think of it," Quatre said. "Your phones won't work here. You should have a way of communicating, just in case. Keep it." He handed it back. "You too, Shinichi," he said, peering around the doorframe at Shinichi, who had not yet managed to make it out of bed, though he was at least sitting on the edge of it.

"Kaito, stop being rude and let them in," Shinichi said.

"Yes, dear," Kaito murmured, standing aside. Quatre handed the phone he'd been using to track his first phone to Shinichi and Duo and Trowa followed him into the room. Duo took one look at the completely untouched top bunk and the thoroughly mussed bottom bunk and broke into a huge grin, barely resisting the urge to give a little fist pump.

"I can't take your phone," Shinichi protested, standing. Kaito rolled his eyes.

"It's okay, I have another one in the car. This one has all of our numbers in the contacts so if anything happens..."

"Is something likely to?" Shinichi asked.

Quatre hesitated.

"Let's just say that you seem like the kind of people things happen to," Trowa said. "Better safe than sorry."

"Well, thanks," Shinichi said. "And, sorry you had to come out here."

"Actually, we were thinking of finding you guys anyway," Quatre said. "We're on our way to medical to check on Heero and thought you might like to see some familiar faces. Get some answers. Want to come with?"

"Yes," Kaito said immediately.

"Are you sure it's—"

"He means yes," Kaito said over Shinichi's objection.

"Don't worry," Quatre said. "Lady Une cleared us to be your escorts. I think she's relieved she doesn't have to assign agents to watch you if we're around. Plus, the case technically isn't closed, and she _did_ call us in as freelancers, so I'm sure she wants us close anyway."

"Did she clear you to answer all of our questions too?" Shinichi asked, skeptical.

"You know, I believe I forgot to ask," Quatre said with a dazzling smile.

"Good enough for me," Shinichi said, looking around for his jacket. "Let's go."

 

They didn't even have to leave the building to get to medical. On the way, Quatre kept up a running commentary on different functions of the Preventers, essentially chattering on inconsequentially in the busy hallways and imparting more useful information in the more deserted ones.

Shinichi watched him carefully. One of the first things he and Kaito had looked up last night was more information on Duo, Heero, and the guys who had pulled them through to the future. They'd known a lot of it, actually, based on interacting with Duo and Heero; when Kaito and Duo had first met, Duo had acted like Kaito should know him. Conan had noted Heero's military mien. Duo had told them the story of how they'd ended up in the past. But neither Kaito nor Shinichi could have guessed the extent of the role the five pilots had played in the all-too-recent war. If the articles and fan sites were to be believed, the same Quatre who was all smiles and sparkle right now was also a scathingly brilliant tactician who had, in his time, killed countless enemy soldiers and single-handedly destroyed an entire colony (a _space colony_. Because they had those here.). And that was tame compared to the others...

All of it was throwing him off-balance and he didn't like it. He wondered what Kaito was making of all this in light of what they knew, but as usual his face gave nothing away. Shinichi sighed and tried to focus on whatever Quatre was telling them about global peace-keeping efforts.

 

When they arrived at Heero's room, Wufei was waiting for them. Apparently he'd been on "Heero duty" all night, which, Shinichi surmised, meant making sure Heero didn't up and vanish before the Preventers were satisfied that he wasn't going to keel over – and that they had gotten all the data they needed from him. Indeed, Shinichi noticed Heero's eyes dart to the air vents the moment they all walked in the room.

"About time," Wufei grumbled. He punched Duo in the shoulder. "Tag, you're it."

"Hey, Heero," Duo said, flinging himself into the single chair next to the bed. The room was tiny – just the bed and the chair and some monitors, and five people trying not to tread on each others' feet. "I brought cards! Wanna play Old Maid?"

"I want to _leave_ ," Heero said. "I'm fine."

"You're not," Wufei said. "You're dehydrated and clinically exhausted and, most importantly, you're bad press waiting to happen. You'll stay."

Heero's eye took on a calculating gleam, but Quatre stepped forward and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "We're _all_ going to stay for a bit, actually. We've got some talking to do." He looked pointedly to the corners of the room. Heero followed his gaze, then deliberately rested his eyes on a particular ceiling tile with what looked like a small black dot on it. Quatre's eyes shifted to Duo, who casually took out his phone and tapped it a bit before there was a tiny little spark and the ceiling camera presumably went dark.

"I did _not_ just see that," Wufei sighed, closing the door resignedly. Kaito was already hovering immediately behind Duo, curved over his chair like a vulture, trying to get a look at what he had done.

"Targeted EMP? With that much precision?" he asked, eyeing the still-functioning medical equipment.

"Targets cameras specifically. They're usually wireless in Preventers headquarters, so if you know the frequency..." Duo said, showing Kaito the app.

"You wrote a program specifically for taking out _Preventers_ tech?!" Wufei sounded a little strangled.

"Guys! Someone's going to notice the security feed is out pretty soon – they tend to watch Heero kind of close since it looks bad when he vanishes without a trace from a security agency," Quatre said. Kaito grinned in appreciation, though Heero just crossed his arms grumpily. "So let's get this out of the way. Lady Une asked me if I would keep Kaito and Shinichi busy until the Preventers get the portal fixed. She doesn't want them stumbling into anything or trying to solve any mysteries—"

"She _did_ Google me!" Shinichi said. Duo looked vaguely scandalized.

"—so I'm to keep them occupied with perfectly safe things that won't give them too much knowledge of the future. However," Quatre went on. "These two have been taking on the Clubs – or, a really old version of our current Clubs – by themselves for years. I say we bring them in."

"Stop. 'We?'" Wufei said. "'Our' Clubs? Do I need to remind you again that _you are not Preventers_. The Clubs are not your problem. The gundanium was recovered."

"Yeah, but you have no idea who was collecting it, who built the portal, or why. This is the best chance we – or, if you like, _you_ – have ever had to find out more about the Clubs. You've never had so much physical evidence to work with. Are you really going to turn down two experts? And one of them a detective?"

"Yes! Their experience is _prehistoric_."

"You're just mad we blew up your camera," Duo said.

"And don't think you're getting out of here without showing me that program, Maxwell."

"What program?" he asked, wide eyed, holding up empty hands that, a moment before, had held a phone.

"Maxwell," Wufei growled in warning, but whatever threat he was about to follow up with was interrupted by the door opening suddenly. Three guns greeted a startled-looking doctor and a security technician. Wufei put his away first upon recognizing them, then Trowa followed suit. Duo retrieved his own gun from Heero's hand with a scowl and put it away, too. Shinichi felt light-headed from the sudden spike in his blood pressure, but did not fail to note that Kaito had stepped slightly in front of him, and had adopted a very relaxed posture with his hands in his pockets. Quatre cast an exasperated eye over everyone in the room, then turned to the newcomers with a pleasant smile.

"May we help you?"

"Um... sorry to interrupt... but we seem to be having a tech issue in this room?" the security tech said.

"Two minutes," Wufei snapped, and slammed the door in their faces. Then he whirled on the rest of the room. "No. No crazy plots, no interfering with this case beyond what you have been directly ordered to do. You will keep _those_ two," he jabbed a finger at Kaito and Shinichi. "Out from underfoot until _we_ fix the portal and send them back where they came from. That simple. The rest of this conversation never happened, and if I hear otherwise, I _will_ report you to Lady Une. You're not above the law, Quatre."

"Of course not, Wufei," Quatre said, frowning. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. Of course the Preventers should handle this. You will let me know if you need help, though, won't you? Even if it's just repairing the portal."

"I'll let you know if Lady Une decides we need help."

"That's fair. I guess I forget that you're not really free to act on your own," Quatre said with a little, sheepish smile. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

"Yeah, yeah. Now all of you clear out – not _you_ Heero," Wufei said, completely exasperated as Heero swung his legs out of the bed. "You're not off the hook either, Maxwell."

"We'd better go," Quatre said, ushering Trowa, Kaito, and Shinichi out of the room and allowing the doctor and the technician to enter.

"Let me see that program," they heard Wufei demand from inside the room.

"Tellin' you, man, I don't know what you're talking about. See for yourself," Duo said.

"...this is _Quatre's_ phone!"

"Perhaps we ought to walk a bit faster?" Kaito suggested. Quatre nodded sagely and lead them into a stairwell heading down to the parking garage.

"If you two don't mind, I thought it might be a good idea to go clothes shopping today," Quatre said. Kaito looked like he might kiss him right then and there.

"What? _Why_?" Shinichi asked, in tones of someone who has just been told that he ought to leave the scene of a crime.

"Well," Quatre said as they exited the stairwell into the cavernous, echoing parking structure. "It'll make Lady Une happy. Plus, I've seen regulation Preventers clothes. Not exactly subtle." He stopped as a gleaming limo pulled up in front of them and opened the door for them. "This is us."

"What was that about subtle?" Shinichi asked under his breath, earning a small smile from Trowa. They all piled in, Quatre gave the driver instructions, and they were off. As soon as they were moving, Kaito fixed Quatre with a shrewd look.

"You are a _distressingly_ good liar. Believe me when I say that means a lot coming from me."

Quatre blushed. "I didn't actually _lie_ ," he protested.

"You told Wufei you'd back down," Shinichi said.

"Actually what I said was that I understood where he was coming from and offered my help. And then I told him I wouldn't overstep myself again. _Technically_ , if I never stopped overstepping the first time I won't be doing it _again_..."

"Don't worry too much about it," Trowa advised, his gaze on the passing city outside the limo's windows. "Wufei just needs plausible deniability. He likes following orders, but it gives him migraines when better orders come from outside his chain of command. Probably why he keeps nagging you to join up," Trowa said with a nod to Quatre. "Your plans are always the best."

"What exactly _is_ the plan?" Shinichi asked. "Are we really going clothes shopping right now?"

"Oh, yes," Quatre assured him. "And in the meantime, I'm going to answer all of your questions. We'll all have to be on the same page if we're going to take out the Clubs. Though, I assure you, if the portal gets fixed you can go home any time."

"Aren't you worried about... I dunno, changing the timeline?" Kaito asked skeptically, but Quatre was already shaking his head.

"Novikov's self-consistency principle. Anything you're going to do or learn, you always already have done and learned. Lady Une would rather play it safe, but after Duo and Heero told me everything they did in your time, I'm more than convinced it's an accurate theory of time travel."

"So, wait..." Shinichi said slowly. "Say we take out the Clubs here. Then go back to our own timeline and use what we learn to take out the Organization there..."

Quatre shrugged. "Then that's what happened. Or, happens. Will happen. Anyway, we don't even know for sure that the Clubs are the same Organization. They only appeared just after the war. As far as we can tell, they haven't been continuous, so... it's possible you two _do_ eliminate your Organization. For several hundred years, at least."

"Well that's encouraging," Shinichi murmured, sneaking a glance at Kaito to gauge his reaction. But Kaito's attention was on his phone – or rather... "Hey, isn't that Duo's phone?" Shinichi asked. Kaito grinned at him.

"So it is. Hey look, it's got Solitaire," he said, though his attempt at innocence was belied by the sudden crackling of the intercom and flickering of the television monitors that the limo was, of course, equipped with.

"Oh dear," said Quatre. "Perhaps I had better just show you how to use that..."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, my reaction to being told I'm going clothes shopping would be closer to Shinichi's than Kaito's. 
> 
> NEXT CONAN'S HINT!  
> "I've stolen way better stuff than that!"


	12. In Which Relena Saves the Day and Wufei Misses all the Fun

Playing any kind of card game with Heero was no fun. He counted cards, and he always knew when Duo was hiding them – he didn't call him out on it, just adjusted his strategy and won anyway. It was obnoxious. So Duo had given up and was reading some old novel called _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_ that Quatre had on his phone. He was reading it out loud, though he really wasn't sure if Heero was paying attention.

Heero was lying flat on the hospital bed staring at the ceiling, though his eyes were more distant than that. He might be thinking about what _he_ would have done to that stupid house elf if it had continually tried to thwart _him_ , or he might have been formulating the perfect escape plan and be about to leap into action.

Duo was just at the part where a character rather improbably named Draco Malfoy was obsessing over the main character (which seemed to be a habit of his) in some shady-ass shop when the text on the phone was suddenly replaced by an incoming-call photo of Relena. Duo grinned and answered as a video call.

"Why hello, Vice Foreign Minister Darlian," he said and Heero's attention was suddenly focused.

"...Duo? Why are you answering Quatre's phone?" Relena seemed to be sitting in the back of her limo. Her hair was tied back and she had on a very well-tailored, tasteful blue suit. Either going to or coming from a meeting, Duo guessed.

"Technically this is Kaito's phone," he said, just to be annoying.

"Who is– you know what, never mind. Is Quatre around? Or better yet, if you're there, is Heero around?"

Duo cocked an eyebrow at Heero, who reached for the phone. He handed it over.

"Relena," Heero said.

"Heero," Relena said.

"Duo," Duo muttered.

"Are you... is that a hospital? Why are you in a hospital?" Relena asked

"Because they won't let me leave," Heero said. "I'm fine."

"He actually is," Duo put in helpfully. "But there's paperwork and a Preventers doctor needs to sign off and I'm pretty sure they're deliberately delaying until some of the bruises fade and the fingers don't look quite so bad. You know, just in case there's press lurking somewhere."

Relena was silent for a few moments, eyebrows contracting, and Duo was pretty sure she was trying to see around the edges of the phone screen to assess the injuries Duo had just mentioned. Then her face cleared and she smiled her politician smile.

"How about I come spring you?"

"Yes," Heero said.

"Hang on a sec!" Duo protested. "Wufei's gonna—"

"I outrank Lady Une," Relena pointed out. "But Heero, you haven't heard what I want in return."

Heero considered it for about a tenth of a second. "Doesn't matter."

"Oh, excellent," Relena said. "I'll be there in five minutes. You can come back to the office with me – ESUN science is trying to sell us on a new Mars-Earth communications array that's supposed to be unhackable. I'd be delighted if you could prove them wrong. The lead scientist is a complete jerk."

Heero just grunted his affirmation.

"Duo, you could come too. In fact, I'll take any stray Gundam pilots that are hanging around looking for something to do."

"'Fraid it's just us at the moment," Duo said. "See you soon!"

The call ended. Heero was already out of bed, pulling on his shoes.

"Lady Une's going to be annoyed," Duo said.

Heero shrugged. "You should stay," he said.

"What? And face the wrath of Une? Not cool, man."

"Stay and keep an eye on Kaito and Shinichi. The mission isn't over; Quatre's got something planned. And we're the only ones who really understand where those two are coming from. I'll go help Relena, maybe gather some intel while I'm in the ESUN network, then meet back up with you."

"Well all right, then," Duo said. Leave it to Heero to turn a completely random occurrence into an opportunity for espionage. "But I doubt ESUN has anything on the Clubs that the Preventers don't have."

"They might not think they do, but it's hard to tell when the Clubs are involved. Maybe they just need someone with the bigger picture looking at their files."

"And since Relena asked you to do some hacking anyway..."

Heero gave Duo a tight little smile. "Shouldn't take long. Try to stay out of trouble while I'm gone."

 

Relena in politician-mode was like a force of nature. She blew into Preventers Medical, informed them that their patient was needed for official business with the Vice Foreign Minister's office, scrawled her signature across a few tablets, and blew out again with Heero in tow. She seemed mildly disappointed that Duo wasn't coming with them, or that there weren't any other Gundam pilots in the vicinity. She must really dislike that lead scientist, Duo thought, watching the limo pull away. Then, reasoning that it was only a matter of time before Une found out about Heero's escape, he hunched his shoulders and slouched out into the city, heading for Quatre and company.

 

*

 

Shinichi was relieved when Quatre finally declared that they were done for the day. Shopping was exhausting; cramming a few centuries of history into your brain while shopping was downright deadly. True to his word, Quatre had answered absolutely every question Kaito and Shinichi had put to him to the best of his ability. Of course, no one knew much about the Clubs, but Shinichi was grateful for the information on the current legal system, law enforcement agencies on a more local level than the Preventers, current political players and governing bodies, and other contextual information that he generally took for granted in his own time period.

Kaito's own questions leaned more toward the technology available in this century, though after he was shown a few of the tricks Duo's phone could do he mostly answered his own questions by sitting and tinkering with it quietly any time they paused to try things on in a shop (or rather, while Kaito waited for Shinichi to finish trying things on, his own clothing changes being completed in seconds). Of all the things Shinichi had seen recently, a quiet, still KID might have been the most astonishing.

Duo joined them toward the end of the day, explaining what Heero was up to with Relena and happily accompanying them to the Green Leaf Café for a well-deserved break. The conversation turned to more inconsequential things like sorting out who had whose phone now and the number of missed calls from Wufei on each, and Shinichi tried to force his brain to relax before it burst out of his skull.

Then Kaito grabbed his hand under the table and gave it a squeeze and every single thought sped away like water droplets on a hot griddle. It was more effective than any mind-clearing technique Shinichi had ever employed, though with the considerable drawback of leaving him unable to do anything but dart his eyes over to Kaito in a questioning look.

"You looked like you were trying to set the salt shaker on fire with your mind," Kaito murmured. Trowa, Quatre, and Duo were engaged in a heated debate about whether Relena had really needed Heero's help or whether she was more interested in confirming his health with her own eyes. "Relax. We've got this."

"I don't even know what it is we're supposed to _get_ at this point," Shinichi muttered back – but he did squeeze Kaito's hand back just before it slipped away.

Knowing that Kaito was confident helped, for whatever reason, and Shinichi eventually relaxed into the conversation – over the course of which it became clear that Kaito had been thinking hard for some time about the details of the portal that had facilitated all of this.

"So, you said the diamond was stolen from a museum exhibit on famous thieves, right?" he asked. "Surely it wasn't in that exhibit as one of _my_ targets?" Since Duo and Heero already knew his identity as KID, Kaito had had no problem telling Trowa and Quatre about it in return for their honesty about the current situation – though he let them believe that Kaito was an alias, and both had agreed with him to keep KID off of any official Preventers documentation.

"Well, yes, actually. I think it was. I'd have to double check since that's not really what I was focusing on at the time. Is it important?" Quatre asked.

"No..." Kaito grumbled. Shinichi raised his eyebrows at him. He would have expected KID to be preening at having made it into a museum exhibit in the future, but he seemed put out. "It's just... I mean... I've stolen _way_ better stuff than that! I stole a clock tower for crying out loud!"

Duo burst out laughing and Trowa said "I imagine they'd have a hard time fitting that in a display case."

"Let me look it up," Quatre said, genuinely interested. He pulled out his phone as their waitress arrived with a tray of food and drinks and began handing them out. "If there's a reason they picked that particular diamond, that might give us some insight as to why the Clubs did, too. Let's see... Magician's Malice..."

" _Magici—?_ "

"Hey!" Shinichi exclaimed, suddenly reaching across the table and catching the waitress by the wrist just as she deposited Kaito's cup on the table. She let out a startled exclamation and all eyes turned to Shinichi. "What did you put in it?" Shinichi growled.

"Wha... what? I... sir, please!" Shinichi squeezed her wrist and her hand opened, dropping a small glass container onto the table, empty but for a residue of white powder.

"Well?" Shinichi demanded. The waitress's expression suddenly turned calculating. She twisted her wrist harshly, breaking Shinichi's grip, and bolted for the kitchen.

With a shout, everyone at the table rose to follow her. Trowa and Kaito led while Duo, Shinichi, and Quatre scrambled over and around the table to give chase, much to the shock of every other customer and employee in the place.

Quick as they were, though, when all five burst through the door into the kitchen there was only a slamming door into the alley to point the way. Ignoring the shouts of the chefs, they pelted across the small kitchen and outside only to find an empty alley.

"Kaito—" Shinichi began, looking up. But Kaito was already at the first landing of a fire escape, headed for the roof.

"Duo, Trowa," Quatre said, gesturing to the left. They nodded and took off deeper into the alley. Quatre and Shinichi went right, toward the street, then split up to search in opposite directions.

Shinichi was hoping she wouldn't be hard to find. The street wasn't busy, and the waitress had had bright red hair and the distinctive neon lime Green Leaf Café uniform. But after running a few blocks, Shinichi realized there were too many places she could have ducked into, too many turns she could have taken. He gave up on this route and began heading back to the alley behind the café, hoping one of the others had had better luck.

Trowa and Duo were already there. Quatre had gone back inside the café to smooth things over with management and retrieve the bottle the waitress had dropped. Trowa was currently on the phone with local law enforcement making a report, though Shinichi noticed he gave a false name and contact information when asked.

"Any sign of Kaito?" Shinichi asked Duo.

"No," he said, with a worried glance up. "That guy can handle himself, right?"

"Of course he can," Shinichi said, already halfway to the fire escape and reaching up.

"I appreciate the vote of confidence, tantei-kun," Kaito said wryly, dropping off the fire escape attached to the opposite building. "And the quick reflexes."

"What can I say... I guess I'm attuned to drugging attempts," Shinichi said, though his attempt at lightness came out a little grim.

"Mm," Kaito agreed, though his mind seemed to be elsewhere as he eyed Shinichi with an intensity that actually made Shinichi want to step back a pace. He didn't know what it was – the expression on his face, or maybe the way he moved as he stalked closer and circled Shinichi, looking him over – but Shinichi could almost see the ghost of a monocle and top-hat.

"Uh... KID?" he hazarded as Kaito completed his circuit. Then Kaito looked up with a bright, normal grin and the impression faded.

"Just making sure you're okay! I guess you had about as much luck as I did," Kaito said.

"You two want to get a room or what?" Duo asked with a roll of his eyes. "We're all fine. No sign of the drug-happy waitress. Let's go see if Cat found anything out."

 

Quatre had not discovered anything of use. The waitress had been working at Green Leaf for about two months. Her background check had been fine and she was quietly competent so her manager had never paid particular attention to her.

"We'll check her out more thoroughly with our own sources," Trowa said as they left the café and piled back into Quatre's limo. He was examining the bottle Quatre had recovered, careful not to get any of the remaining powder on his hands. "This might tell us something, too. Was Kaito's cup the only one she put it in?"

"As far as I saw," Shinichi said. "She'd need a bigger bottle if she wanted to do any more. I think. Unless it's some kind of drug you have here that I don't know about."

"Why would anyone want to poison Kaito, though?" Quatre wondered.

Kaito snorted. "I can think of a few reasons... but none of them are really relevant to this time period."

"Unless they are," Shinichi said, crossing his arms. "We come here to investigate the Clubs, which we suspect to be the same Organization we're fighting in the present, and Kaito gets attacked before we're even here two days? Could be connected."

"But no one except us knows he's the same KID that was fighting the Organization in the past," Quatre pointed out. "Actually, no one knows he's even _from_ the past except top-security clearance Preventers, and that's just us and Lady Une. Even the agents at the portal when you came through don't have the details. They think you're agents from our time period."

"And even if they did know about you, why would they try to poison one of you and not the other?" Duo pointed out.

"Could it have been a mistake?" Kaito asked. "Someone looking to settle an old score from the war, maybe? If she was sent by someone else, she could have just been going on a description..."

Duo snorted. "You're forgetting that our faces were plastered all over the media during and after the war. If someone wanted to off one of us all they would need is a name. You'd have to be living under a particularly thick rock not to know what we look like."

"Regardless, we can't assume this was a poison meant to kill," Shinichi said. "It's possible that this is a drug or toxin that does... something else. Until we know, we can't really guess at motives."

"Right... oh, we should probably let Wufei know," Quatre said.

"Already texted him. And Heero," Trowa said. Quatre beamed at him.

"I guess that explains why Wufei is waiting for us at the door, then," Duo said, slouching down in his seat. Indeed, they were approaching headquarters and Wufei was standing with his arms crossed looking dour. Though, Shinichi reflected, as he had never seen Wufei look anything but dour, that might just be what his face looked like.

Duo slid out of the car as soon as it stopped moving and opened the trunk, sticking most of the upper half of his body inside to pull out the boxes and bags that were the fruit of the day's labors - and conveniently avoiding Wufei's gaze as he did so. He had to come up for air eventually, though, and when he turned to pile a stack of boxes into Kaito's arms he found Wufei there instead.

"Uh... hey Wufei..." he said nervously. Turning, he did manage to hand the boxes off to Kaito before diving back into the trunk for a few stragglers. Kaito blinked down at the sudden burden, looking from Wufei to Duo, bemused.

"Oh relax, Maxwell. I don't expect you to fight the Vice Foreign Minister when she decides she wants something. I'm just here to make sure these two make it back to their quarters without anyone else trying to kill them," Wufei said, gesturing to Shinichi and Kaito.

"We don't technically know they were trying to—" Shinichi started, but Wufei interrupted him with an upraised hand.

"Don't care. Homicide, attempted or otherwise, is not my division. Or any Preventers division, usually."

Quatre gave him a shrewd look. "Does that mean Lady Une's not taking a hand in this?"

"I can't imagine why she would," Wufei said blandly. "My orders are just to stick these two in a room for the night. They're your problem after that."

"Excellent," Kaito said. He dumped his armload of purchases into Wufei's hands before he could protest. "Let's get to it, then. I'm beat."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I picked Chamber of Secrets because that was the book I was reading at the time I wrote this chapter.
> 
> 2\. Does Relena actually outrank Lady Une? I do not know. But I have a feeling those two at least have an ~understanding, especially when it comes to managing stray Gundam pilots without breaking the world.
> 
> NEXT CONAN'S HINT!  
> "C12H22O11."


	13. In Which a Museum Fails to do Justice to Kaito KID

"Shinichi..." Kaito said several hours after they'd been escorted back to their quarters. It was well into the night. With no electronics and no windows, their room at Preventers headquarters was quite dark. The only illumination came from the hall light shining through the crack under the door. Kaito's voice floated down out of the darkness like an annoyed ghost to haunt Shinichi's ears. "Shinichi, go to _sleep_."

Shinichi blinked. Not that it made much difference. "How did you know I was still awake?"

"I can practically hear you thinking down there. What's wrong?"

"I thought you wanted me to go to sleep."

"Yeah, but that was clearly an unrealistic expectation."

Shinichi considered rolling over and faking sleep just to prove Kaito wrong, but he thought it rather unlikely that Kaito would just let that slide, and if Kaito decided to invade his bunk again... well, Shinichi had enough on his mind already.

"I'm just thinking about the portal. There's too much that doesn't make sense."

"Really? What is it, exactly, about the one-way portal to the past made out of non-periodic elements by a shadowy cabal that may or may not be centuries old that doesn't make sense?"

"Someone threw Duo through it," Shinichi said, ignoring Kaito's sarcasm.

"Eh?" Shinichi heard springs creak above him as Kaito shifted. "So?"

"The way Duo told it, there wasn't even a fight. It's like the guy's _purpose_ was to toss him into the portal. He could easily have killed him if that was what he wanted... so why send him to the past?"

"The perfect murder? Or maybe he wanted to test the portal?"

"And then he just vanishes? Wufei and Trowa were in the room seconds after Heero passed by the guy and he was just... gone. The only way out—"

"—was through the portal," Kaito said, and now his face actually appeared over the edge of the top bunk, looking down at Shinichi. "But... we would have seen whoever it was. Or, I would have. The diamond was with me the whole time."

"I _know_." Shinichi dug the heel of his hand into his forehead. "But if there's some kind of future technology that could hide him... if he came through the portal in midair like Heero and Duo, but camouflaged, and then just... glided away?"

Kaito snorted. "Then I'd have to find him and give him a lecture about stealing someone else's tricks. But we can ask about that hypothetical tech tomorrow. There's nothing you can do about it right now."

"I just can't help but think that that would be a really good explanation for why the Organization was able to persist so long... why they're here, in the future."

"Didn't Quatre say they just turned up again a few years ago? They haven't been continuous. If it's true that one of them went to the past and gave our Organization insider info on the future, then shouldn't they have been able to survive continuously?"

"Maybe they have," Shinichi said darkly. Kaito rolled his eyes and slid out of his bunk, landing softly. In the same motion, he sat cross-legged on the floor beside Shinichi's bed and folded his arms on it, resting his chin on them. Shinichi started and moved over instinctively, making room. Kaito cast a glance at the vacated space, then looked up at Shinichi with a small smirk, but didn't move.

"Okay. Say your incredibly pessimistic worst-case scenario is accurate. You're forgetting something."

"What?" Shinichi asked, skeptical.

" _Time travel_ ," Kaito said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "We help the Preventers clean up their mess here, then just go back in time to wherever we need to to intercept our hypothetical time-traveling Organization member."

Shinichi stared up at the bottom of the top bunk for a few moments before gathering himself enough to answer. "That's... the other reason the Organization might persist until this century," he said, very quietly. Then he took a deep breath. "What if there was no one to oppose them? What if... we don't make it back."

Kaito reached out and seized Shinichi's hand where it lay on the mattress, startling him into meeting his eyes. "Hey," he said. "Of course we're going to make it back!"

Shinichi couldn't help smiling. "You're so confident."

"Well, yeah. I got you into this mess, didn't I? When have I ever let you down."

Shinichi felt a retort die on his lips. Kaito's light tone was belied by the intensity in his expression, which seemed to turn his words into a promise. Shinichi found himself angling his body toward Kaito, turning and leaning in to where their hands were still clasped between them.

Then Kaito dropped Shinichi's hand like a hot coal and shot to his feet – promptly cracking his head on the top bunk.

"Ow-ow-ow!" Kaito exclaimed, clutching his hands over the back of his head.

"Kaito!" Shinichi said, sitting up so quickly he almost did the same to himself. "Are you all right?"

"Fine! I'm fine." Kaito rubbed his head ruefully, looking down at Shinichi. "Obviously more tired than I thought. I should–" He gestured to the top bunk and then, as though thought and action were one and the same for him, disappeared and reappeared in his own bed. "Good night, Shinichi!"

Shinichi sat, one hand still partially outstretched to help Kaito, thoroughly nonplussed. What on Earth had just happened?

 

Shinichi did, eventually, manage to get to sleep. He must have, because now he was yawning and stretching, shoving off the blankets and... being watched by Kaito, who was sitting the wrong way in the desk chair, rocking it forward on two legs with a slightly silly smile on his face.

"It's about time," Kaito said.

"Well you could've said something instead of just... _staring_ ," Shinichi said, a faint blush beginning to rise.

"And miss watching you wake up?"

"...creepy, Kaito."

Kaito let the chair fall back with a dull thud. "Hm, you're right. I'll work on that. Here." He twisted around and grabbed a tall paper cup with a lid off the desk and held it out to Shinichi. "I got you coffee."

Shinichi made an inarticulate noise and stumbled out of bed, grabbing the coffee cup. He made another one accompanied by a gesture to the bathroom and vanished behind the door. Moments later, Kaito heard the shower running. He wondered whether Shinichi had actually finished the coffee that quickly, or had just taken it into the shower with him. _You could find out,_ said the wicked little voice in the back of his mind that he usually listened to. Kaito smiled to himself, but resolutely stayed exactly where he was.

 

Duo showed up not long after.

"You two are stuck with me today," he said cheerfully. "Quatre had some business thing, Trowa's in the lab analyzing the powder from the vial, and Wufei's on portal duty. I don't suppose either of you have heard from Heero?"

Both Kaito and Shinichi shook their heads. Shinichi's hair was still dripping slightly as he swiped at it with a towel.

"Figures," Duo said. "I was hoping he'd have found something in ESUN's files but that'd be way too simple. Relena's probably still got him running laps around her scientists."

"I could help Trowa in the lab," Kaito offered, but Duo shook his head.

"Cat actually has a job for us. We're supposed to look into that diamond, see what we can figure out."

"Great," Shinichi said, and he meant it. It was as good a place as any to start investigating, and it would be good to be _doing_ something. "Where do we start? Do they still have libraries in the future?"

"Of course we do, what do you think we are, a bunch of savages? But we're not going there," Duo said. "Turns out a certain museum exhibit is still in the country, just an hour's drive away. Shall we go take a walk down memory lane?"

 

Quatre had loaned them a car – something less ostentatious than a limo this time – and a driver, who Shinichi looked at with clear suspicion. Duo assured him that there wasn't a member of the Maganac Corps who would ever betray Quatre or his friends, and of course that required a whole _other_ explanation, so they were most of the way to the museum by the time Shinichi finally mentioned his concerns about the portal to Duo.

"Camouflage tech, huh?" Duo said, thoughtful. "Well, yeah, it exists. I should know. Deathscythe coulda done what you're talking about, easy. But," he continued, forestalling Shinichi's panic. "Deathscythe was a Gundam. Huge. Miniaturizing his systems, even just the stealth system, would be..." Duo shook his head. "No way a personal cloaking device thorough enough that Kaito wouldn't notice someone landing on top of him exists. I don't think that asshole went through the portal."

"Then where? And why throw you in just to vanish? Why not get rid of all of you and protect the portal?" Shinichi asked

Duo snorted. "You say that like getting rid of a Gundam pilot is easy. Whoever it was was lucky that he got me at all, and lucky that Heero ignored him to go after me. He probably didn't want to push it, facing Wufei and Trowa at the same time."

"You know, in my experience, things that look like luck are often the result of careful planning and manipulation of circumstance," Kaito said. Shinichi looked sharply at him.

"Could you have done it? Vanished from the room without going through the portal and without Wufei and Trowa seeing you?" he asked.

Kaito smirked. "Well, yeah. There are two ways I might have gone about it... and a third, less advisable option... but yes. Then again, I specialize in the impossible," he said modestly.

"Yeah, and the Organization knows it," Shinichi said, hand on his chin. "They stole the diamond from a display about you. There's obviously a record of your heists somewhere... could be they're borrowing a few plays from your book."

Rather than being dismayed by this, Kaito grinned sharply. "Good. Then I'll have no problem seeing right through their illusions when we finally meet up with them."

 

They arrived at the Earth Heritage Institute a short time later. It was an impressive building situated in the middle of a beautiful, open campus crisscrossed by walkways, green spaces, and outdoor art exhibits. Duo tucked his hair down his shirt and pulled a baseball cap low over his eyes before they got out of the car.

"You know, if you want a better disguise..." Kaito began, but Duo just rolled his eyes and marched into the building.

As it turned out, they were expected.

"Yes, Mr. Winner himself called ahead," said a tiny, elderly woman with a cloud of wiry grey hair and the most enormous pair of glasses. She was shorter than all of them by a good head and, despite her advanced age, wore a smart business suit and walked with a brisk step, seemingly unburdened by the phone, walkie-talkie, and scanner clipped to her belt. She sounded slightly breathless at the thought of a phone call from the CEO of Winner Corporation himself, but nevertheless looked at them with keen, dark eyes that lingered particularly on Duo. "I am Dr. Malaika Kisi, history curator here at the Earth Heritage Institute. I'll be showing you around today."

They all murmured their thanks and followed her through the cavernous halls of the museum until they came to the galleries where the Famous Thieves of History exhibit was installed. There were a few people ambling about, reading the plaques and eyeing the artifacts with casual interest.

"We have the exhibit until the end of the month," Dr. Kisi said in the same hushed voice that everyone seemed to take on in museums. "Then it moves on to the Field Museum. Please do ask me anything you like about the exhibit."

They assured her they would and spread out to examine the galleries that housed the collection.

 

Despite Dr. Kisi's helpfulness, however, the exhibit proved to be a dead end. While it contained lovingly curated collections dedicated to train heists, jewel heists, and even to specific thieves, there was nothing in it at all about Kaito KID. Frustrated, they were about to leave when Dr. Kisi mentioned the parts of the exhibit that had been held back in storage to save space. A dazzling smile from Kaito and a quick mention about how grateful the Winner Corporation would be quickly melted any reservations the curator might have had about giving them access to the storage area. She led them through an office corridor and to a back stairwell, explaining that the part of the exhibit that had been left out had been the target of a jewel thief at the last museum to display it.

"A diamond theft at an exhibit about thieves?" Kaito asked, all innocence. "Gosh. Did they ever catch who did it?"

"No, though I hear the Preventers were called in." Dr. Kisi glanced at Duo, then away. "The owner of the exhibit was very understanding, I hear."

"Owner?" Duo asked as they entered a stairwell and headed down towards the basements of the museum.

"Oh yes. The Thieves of History exhibit is a private collection on loan to the museum circuit. It is _very_ well done for a private collection, isn't it? But then, the Suzuki Foundation is known—"

Shinichi's head shot up at the familiar name and he missed a step, plunging forward on the stairwell to general exclamations. But Kaito, who had been in front of him, turned and caught him immediately. Shinichi was positive anyone else would have been bowled over and that they both would have ended up tumbling down the stairs, but Kaito simply turned, absorbing the momentum and falling against the wall of the stairwell with Shinichi sprawled awkwardly chest-to-chest with him, arms tangled together.

"Th– thanks," Shinichi said. With the way he was sprawled, with all of his weight on Kaito and his footing unsure, he actually had to tip his head up just a bit to look at Kaito. He wasn't really prepared for the expression he saw there – eyes warm, a small smile, a definite undeniable _fondness_ that was somehow more intimate than any appreciative, openly admiring, or just plain seductive look Kaito had ever cast his way. It quite stopped Shinichi's breath, and he must have looked it because a slow blush began to creep into Kaito's cheeks. He hurriedly got Shinichi back on his feet and turned back to Dr. Kisi, putting a step or two between himself and Shinichi in the process.

"Oh my dear, are you quite all right?" Dr. Kisi asked, alarmed.

"Fine," Shinichi said. "Sorry, just... clumsy. You were saying, about the Suzuki Foundation?" He supposed he shouldn't be surprised the Foundation had lasted, or that it had produced an exhibit like this.

They continued down the stairs listening to Dr. Kisi's explanations and commentary. Or, ostensibly listening. Shinichi's eyes were glued to the back of Kaito's head. Since when did that stupid thief have any qualms about manhandling him?

"Hey," Duo said in an undertone, coming up behind him. Shinichi had nearly forgotten he was there. "So?" He looked meaningfully at Kaito and then back to Shinichi. "Going well?"

"What do you mean?" Shinichi asked, perplexed.

"Oh come on," Duo hissed. "You've had a crush on him since you were eight years old! I mean, yeah, that was only a couple days ago, but..."

"What? I have not!" Shinichi whispered back. "I just— he's just— He's obviously not interested!"

" _What_? Aren't you supposed to be, like, observant and shit? He's been chasing you as long as you've been chasing him. You're both just trying not to startle each other away. Honestly, it's like watching a puppy get scared of its own reflection."

"If you're such an expert on relationships, what about you and Heero?" Shinichi shot back. Duo stopped.

"What _about_ us?" he asked, puzzled.

"Oh come on. You've checked your phone approximately twenty times since we got to the museum, and I don't think it's because you're waiting on lab results. You miss him. And he's obviously attached to you."

Duo scoffed. "First of all, I do not _miss_ him. He's been with Relena less than twenty-four hours, I am not that pathetic. Second of all, yeah, he's 'attached' to me," he said, with the most sarcastic air quotes he could muster. "And I'm 'attached' to him. So?"

"So when are you going to act on it?"

Duo's eyebrows shot up as he cast a surprised glance at Shinichi. Then he let a slow grin spread across his face. "What on Earth makes you think we aren't _acting_ on it?" he asked, and added a few teeth to the grin for good measure.

Shinichi turned beet red. "I didn't— but you don't..."

"You think because we're not hanging all over each other every second that there's nothing going on?" Duo shook his head and slung an arm around Shinichi's shoulders, moving him forward again before Kaito and Dr. Kisi started to wonder what had become of them. "I admit, Heero and I don't have the most traditional of relationships," _If you could call it a relationship,_ Duo added privately. "But we know where we stand. So I guess you're right: I _am_ an expert! And I say one of you needs to make a move or you're both going to be miserable way longer than necessary." With that, Duo let Shinichi go and moved ahead while Shinichi followed more slowly, considering.

 

The rest of the exhibit was being kept on the storage level of the museum, but separate from the rest of the stored collections – which made sense, as the exhibit was only temporary and would be packed up soon. It seemed that the only part of the exhibit that had been held back was the information on Kaito KID. Several framed newspapers rested forlornly at the bottom of a packing crate, along with the display case that had once contained the diamond. It still had the small bronze nameplate on it that read "Magician's Malice".

"Duo, would you check the articles?" Shinichi asked, looking at the bits of newspaper as though they might bite. "Unless... you want to read them?" he asked Kaito. Kaito shook his head.

"No... I don't think that will be necessary," he said. "I don't need to know."

Duo nodded his understanding and, with Dr. Kisi's permission, began pulling the mounted articles from the box. They were in archival-quality frames, of course, and seemed to be the original newsclippings; Jirokichi's work, Shinichi was sure. Each had an accompanying panel with translations in several modern languages.

"What can you tell us about the provenance of the diamond?" Shinichi asked, turning away from the articles and addressing Dr. Kisi.

"Nothing off the top of my head. One moment, please." She pulled the scanner off of her belt and scanned the inventory sheet attached to the outside of the crate. Information began scrolling across the scanner's screen. "Ah. Hmm."

"Is there a problem?" Shinichi asked, hopeful. If there was a problem, that would be a clue.

"No, it's just... well, you have to understand, the war... certain items changed hands unofficially at times. These things happen. I'm afraid our records for this item are incomplete. Of course it belongs to the Suzuki Foundation now, and they purchased it legitimately about three years ago at auction, but how it came to auction..." She shrugged.

"All right," Shinichi said, thinking. "What about further back? Around the time of Kaito KID?"

Dr. Kisi scrolled back further. It took a while. "Let's see... more gaps... ah, here, in the twenty-first century it was in possession of the Suzuki Foundation again. But it looks like they sold it a few years later – oh, this is interesting. There was a name change. Apparently this diamond used to be known as 'Mischief's Malice'."

Shinichi glanced at Kaito, expecting to see him just as eager to discover anything more about this somewhat ominous name change, and what had made this particular unassuming diamond his legacy, but was surprised to see him looking out from behind his damned poker face. His body language was all wrong – hands in pockets, posture utterly relaxed; Shinichi had seen him looking exactly like that right before springing a trap on the task force.

"Any indication about _why_ the name changed just then?" Shinichi asked, keeping one eye on Kaito, whose expression didn't change. Shinichi didn't want to find out too much about their future, but they might need this information to figure out the Organization's plans. If Kaito really didn't want to hear it, he could leave the room.

"No, but one might assume it had something to do with the Kaito KID," Dr. Kisi said, looking up from her screen. "He was a magician, you know."

"You don't say," Shinichi murmured. "Well, just one more question, I think, and we'll be out of your way," he said. "Kaito KID stole a _lot_ of jewels. Any idea why this particular one made the exhibit?"

"To be perfectly honest with you, it's in the exhibit because the Suzuki Foundation put it there," Dr. Kisi said bluntly. "Possibly they wanted to include Kaito KID in the exhibit, and this was the only target of his that they had. I really couldn't say." Shinichi must have looked disappointed because Dr. Kisi patted his arm. "If you're really that interested in this particular thief and this particular diamond, I can recommend you to a library with excellent historic archives of Tokyo newspapers. We know that the name of the gem changed in CE 2020. The Kaito KID was very popular at the time. Perhaps you'll find something in the newspapers of that year."

 

They thanked Dr. Kisi and left the museum. Duo assured them that they hadn't missed anything dire in the newspaper clippings he had read – there hadn't been anything in there later than 2015 anyway. The article that went with the diamond itself was literally from the day after the heist when Duo had dropped into Kaito's arms. Apparently the Suzuki Foundation hadn't found it odd that the article referenced "Mischief's Malice" while the diamond was called "Magician's Malice", but since the provenance clearly showed the name change he supposed it was obvious that they were the same diamond.

"I'm starving," Duo announced as they descended the museum steps in the afternoon sunshine. "Research makes me hungry. You guys want corn dogs?" There was a vendor set up not far away. Both Kaito and Shinichi agreed, but hung back a little as Duo bounded over to acquire sustenance.

"So... what did that gain us?" Kaito asked, hands in pockets and head tilted back, watching fluffy white clouds hurry across the sky.

"Well, we know when the name of the diamond changed. And Dr. Kisi was probably right – it has something to do with you. We should take her suggestion and hit that library."

Kaito huffed impatiently. "More research."

"Actually, maybe we should sit this round out," Shinichi said. The way Kaito perked up at that spread a smile across Shinichi's face. "We don't want to find out too much about our past, do we? I mean... there's a reason the Organization wanted to build a portal to the past, and maybe it has something to do with you and the diamond, but there are way too many other things we could find out while doing that research that I just don't want to know. Is that dumb?"

Kaito's smile rivaled the sun. "Not at all. I agree wholeheartedly."

"To what?" Duo asked, returning to the two of them and handing out corn dogs.

"To the fact that someone _else_ needs to go sit in a library for hours reading old newspapers," Kaito said.

"Oh. Okay. So what are we going to do next?"

"Next we are going to eat corn dogs and enjoy this beautiful day," Kaito said

And so they did.

 

Trowa called them just as they were completing their circuit of the museum's extensive campus. Shinichi had thought he would be bored or frustrated with just strolling about, taking in the sights, but he found himself completely, pleasantly, distracted by Kaito. Duo was pretty ostentatiously hanging back, finding other things to look interested in, making phone calls, anything to give them a little space. It was like having an eighteenth century chaperone, but Shinichi couldn't say he minded. Kaito, never still, had produced a deck of cards and was doing tricks as they walked, even condescending to slow them down and let Shinichi try and work them out for himself.

"You know," Shinichi said after having just failed for the fifteenth time in a row to accurately surmise which card Kaito had drawn. "Your accent is really good. It's improved even since yesterday. I'm impressed."

"Oh, well, yours isn't too terrible. At least you don't sound like a non-native speaker anymore. Maybe just like you're from Osaka," Kaito said with a grin.

"Gee, thanks," Shinichi said, but further retort was interrupted by Duo jogging over to them, waving his phone.

"It's Trowa," he said, needlessly since it was a video call.

"Did you figure out the poison?" Shinichi demanded as he, Duo, and Kaito clustered around the screen.

"C12H22O11," Trowa said.

"But that's—" Shinichi started.

"Table sugar," Kaito finished, just as perplexed.

"Powdered table sugar, in this case. And I think they mixed in some corn starch to keep it from clumping," Trowa said.

"Oh, good," said Duo. "You wouldn't want your fake poison to _clump_ in the middle of fake murdering someone."

"It's hard to believe. That's why I took so long before calling you – I double and triple checked. That's all it is. Nothing more," Trowa said.

Shinichi's mind whirled through one possible explanation after another, rejecting each as not fitting all the facts.

"Well, tantei-kun?" Kaito asked, a small smile on his face.

"Two options," Shinichi said, eyes distant. "The first is that we picked up the wrong bottle. She had an accomplice who swapped them out while we chased after her. The second... the second is that she _wanted_ to be caught, but didn't want to hurt us."

"If she wanted to be caught she did way too good a job running away," Duo pointed out.

"Maybe... maybe it was a warning? She wanted us on our guard?" Shinichi said.

"That's a roundabout way of delivering a warning," Trowa said.

"Yeah, but the other option – an accomplice – why not just take the bottle entirely? Why leave a decoy for us to find? Neither option makes total sense. We're still missing something," Shinichi fretted.

"Let's regroup back at Preventers base," Trowa said. "I'm liking the idea of you three being out in the open a little less at the moment. Wufei is off duty in an hour and Quatre is coming here as soon as his meetings end. We can put our heads together."

 

Wufei was already waiting with Trowa when Kaito, Shinichi, and Duo returned to Preventers headquarters. But as it turned out, five heads were no better than one in this case. None of them could fill in the gaps to explain why the waitress had attempted to lace Kaito's drink with sugar.

"Maybe it reacts with something?" Shinichi wondered. "Harmless table sugar, until you add something else?"

"No poison or drug I know of works like that," Trowa said. "Besides, that doesn't answer the question of why she attempted this _at_ the table. She had access to the kitchen and the bar."

"Which brings us back to her _wanting_ to be caught," Duo said.

"And leaves the question of her running," Kaito said, shaking his head. "We've been over this all a dozen times. We're going in circles."

"Hey guys," Quatre said, appearing in the doorway to the lab. Or rather, a stack of pizza boxes from behind which Quatre's voice emerged appeared in the doorway of the lab. "Sorry I'm late. I brought food."

Trowa went to his side to take half the boxes, bending to brush a light kiss against his cheek as he did so, then deftly turning out of the way as Duo made a bid to open one of them.

"Hey, no food in the labs!" Wufei protested. "Out, out. There's a break room down the hall." He shepherded Kaito and Shinichi toward the door, and forced everyone into the hallway.

"You brought enough for half the base," Shinichi said as they filed into the luckily-empty break room. It was like every break room in every police headquarters Shinichi had ever been in, complete with a stale pot of coffee, which he took immediate advantage of.

"I didn't know what you guys liked, so I got just about everything."

Kaito paused in the act of opening one of the boxes, then slowly eased the lid up. Finding only nice, safe, pepperoni, he grinned and dug in. "Pizza toppings haven't changed much," he commented.

"Well there are regional favorites," Duo said. "In the colonies they put cinnamon in the crust."

Shinichi cast him a skeptical look. "This isn't like that time you tried to convince Sonoko and Ran about eating pizza backward, is it?"

"Would I lie to you?" Duo asked, wide-eyed. Before Shinichi could retort, Trowa interjected.

"This one's true. Traveling between all the colonies I've seen stranger, though. Grapes. Coffee beans. Deep-fried pickles." He paused for their general sounds of disbelief and disgust. "It's true. Heero will back me up on that last one."

"Hey, where _is_ Heero, anyway?" Quatre asked, one eye on Duo. "Still working with Relena?"

Duo shrugged very casually. "Guess so."

"Isn't it a little odd he hasn't at least checked in?" Shinichi asked.

Wufei snorted. "We're lucky he reports in on _official_ missions."

"He does have a slight tendency to... go off-book," Quatre said delicately. "It's nothing to worry about. I'm sure Relena will fill me in at our brunch tomorrow."

"You have _brunch_ with Relena?" Duo asked, incredulous. Quatre nodded serenely.

"Every week, Duo, since the war ended. It's important to keep in touch."

"The Vice Foreign Minister and the Earth Sphere's most powerful CEO," Duo said with a shake of his head. "I'll bet it's important."

Quatre just smiled at him.

The six of them were a bit tight in the break room, but with Kaito and Duo perched on counters, they easily made do and took a decent shot at proving the excessive amount of food Quatre had brought was no such thing. They filled him in on what he'd missed while in his meetings, but got no further in puzzling out the motives of the mysterious waitress.

Wufei had little progress to report on their repair of the portal, as well. They had assumed that one gunshot couldn't possibly have damaged it _that_ much, but had discovered that the device was not entirely made of gundanium. And of course the bullet had torn through bits of it that weren't. Even after repairing the hardware, though, the portal was not acting as it should.

When the group finally split hours later, each heading home or to their assigned quarters, it was with a decidedly dejected air.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally a bit longer. I cut out a bit in the museum for pacing. However, if you're interested in reading it, I [posted it on my tumblr](http://solomonara.tumblr.com/post/147479829159/deleted-museum-scene). Basically it just goes into a little more detail about the exhibit itself, and a wee bit more interaction between Kaito and Shinichi.
> 
> NEXT CONAN'S HINT!  
> "It seems I have a fan."


	14. In Which Quatre and Relena Do Brunch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm skipping town for a bit, so you lovelies get an early update :) That means there won't be one this weekend, though.

Quatre and Relena met in their usual restaurant: a medium-sized place modeled on the classic Western tea-room. It was bright and airy, with tall, narrow windows letting in late morning sunshine that highlighted the pristine white walls and stately Corinthian pilasters molded into them. Above, the ceiling soared into a cupola of frosted, ivory-tinted glass that softened the light as the afternoon progressed.

They had chosen this place years ago not just for its pleasing aesthetic (and excellent food), but also for its discreet staff. The Vice Foreign Minister and CEO of Winner Corporation sat at a table partially screened by a decorative, carefully pruned trellis of pale pink clematis. By long tradition, business was discussed over their meal and personal matters over tea and coffee afterward, though, Quatre thought as he sipped green tea with mint, it was surprising that the two didn't overlap more. Relena had not mentioned the Mars-Earth communication project Heero was helping her with.

"So, how is everyone?" Relena asked, her standard opening to the real reason they met once a week. She would keep Quatre updated on Dorothy and Zechs, and Quatre would share anything he had heard from the other pilots. Both would trade information on Noin, Po, and Une when they had any to share. "You missed last week for some top-secret mission so I'm guessing you have quite an update for me," Relena said happily.

"Heero hasn't told you anything?" Quatre asked, surprised. He knew Heero could be uncommunicative, but this was _Relena_. Heero actually liked her, and she knew how to talk to him.

"Heero? I haven't heard from him in... oh, months," Relena said.

"What?" Quatre's teacup paused in midair. "What do you mean?"

"Last I heard was what you told me a few weeks ago – Heero was in space." She grinned. "With Duo. Any updates on _that_ little drama, by the way?"

"No..." Quatre said, and it wasn't an answer to Relena's question. "No, wait. Heero was with you. He left the Preventers' J.A.P. base two days ago _with you_."

Relena's eyes widened. "I've been in Sanc for the last week on a Mars Committee retreat. I just got back today. Quatre, that wasn't me."

Quatre stood. "I need to—"

"Yes, go! I'll find out what I can," Relena said, pushing away from the table. They headed in opposite directions, both already raising phones to their ears and speaking in undertones until they could reach the privacy of their vehicles. While Relena's first calls were to her trusted aides and to Dorothy to see if Relena had been spotted anywhere she shouldn't have been, Quatre immediately got in touch with Duo.

"You're _certain_?" Quatre asked for the second time, sliding into his car. "Preventer's base, please, Ahmad. _Hurry_ ," he said. Ahmad grinned, his mustache curving, and peeled out of the parking spot. Quatre sighed in relief. He was lucky Ahmad had turned up and offered to drive today – the Maganac Corp seemed to like to take it in turns to keep an eye on him, though Quatre assured them he could easily drive himself or hire a driver. But Ahmad was the best at getting places in a hurry (even if it was a slightly reckless hurry).

"Of _course_ I'm sure, you think I wouldn't recognize _Relena_? She _signed him out_ , Cat. You can look at the signature and security feed yourself," Duo said, sounding a little panicked. Quatre could hear rushing wind. Duo was on his motorcycle. Hopefully he was using his helmet com. "What's this all about?"

"Relena says she's been in Sanc for the last week."

Duo swore thoroughly.

"Where are Shinichi and Kaito?" Quatre asked, mind racing through a hundred disastrous scenarios.

"With Wufei. Une caved and is letting them look at the portal. I'm on my way there."

"Good. Keep an eye on them. I'll call Trowa." Trowa had library duty today, but luckily the library he'd started at wasn't far from the base. "We'll be there soon."

 

Duo called Heero as soon as Quatre hung up. Phone was an unreliable method of getting into contact with him – usually he just showed up when needed – but Duo knew he hadn't switched numbers or changed phones since this case had started. Heero knew the importance of staying in touch during a mission... he'd answer. If he could.

He didn't.

Duo's swearing blistered the air as he leaned forward and sped up. He was almost to the building where the portal was housed – luckily he'd already been heading there when Quatre called – and tried to shove down the panic. This was Heero. No way someone could get away with abducting him.

Except that someone _had_ , not that long ago... but that was a helicopter full of heavily armed thugs. Duo would swear that it had just been Relena and her driver in the car Heero had climbed into two days ago. Surely this was all some kind of crazy misunderstanding.

Duo broke a few more traffic laws, glad he had modified this bike himself.

 

*

 

Elsewhere:

_"...a difference?"_

_"...can't tell. Orders ... ... specific, though."_

The words came to Heero distantly. They sounded tinny, muddled. He didn't bother hiding his return to consciousness, because he couldn't have moved if he wanted to. His brain felt detached from his body. Well, listening was still good, even if the audio kept dropping out.

 _"...like no science_ I've _ever heard of,"_ the first voice said. Male.

 _"You don't have to ... ... ... ... ... follow instructions."_ Female. Impatient.

 _"Doesn't mean ... ... ... damn spooky... ... freaking_ Gundam pilot _..."_ The man was nervous. Good.

 _"Shut up. ... ... ... waking up?"_ Disbelief from the woman. Heero's hearing abruptly cleared.

"What?"

"Not _him_ , you idiot. The pilot!"

 _Oh_ , Heero thought vaguely. _Am I waking up? Better hurry._

"Shit. _Shit_. We don't have orders for this!" The nervous man was now out-and-out scared, and Heero could hear other things too. The steady beep of a heart monitor. Something that sounded like hydraulics. An echo indicating the size of the room.

"Well, he can't predict everything. Move!" That was the woman, who still just sounded impatient. Heero heard a clatter, then the table he was lying on (strapped to, he noticed distantly) jolted as though something had run into it. He struggled to open his eyes, which felt gummed shut, and succeeded after a few moments – only to be blinded by the amount of light shining down on him from a lamp directly overhead.

He turned his head, squinting, his vision blurry and wavering. Tile floor. Some boxes... or maybe equipment... something that looked like a glass coffin... and an arm reaching across his vision, grabbing for the IV that he now realized was in his arm, inserting a syringe. The spike of adrenaline he felt flash through him was not enough for him to do anything about that, though.

But another hand grabbed the first before she could depress the plunger.

"Don't! What if you hurt—"

The woman hissed in irritation and completed the injection anyway. Heero immediately felt its effects as his eyes drifted closed. The man made a sound of dismay.

"If that fucks up this little experiment somehow, it is not my fault," he said.

"You would rather..." Heero's hearing began to fade out again. _"...monitor them both."_

_"... record it. ... ... ... let the Master know."_

_*_

Duo tried very, very hard not to look at Kaito while he relayed Quatre's message. He knew, logically, there was no _way_ Kaito had had a hand in this, but – the disguise had been perfect. Duo had replayed the scene over and over in his head, and there was _nothing_ he could pick out that made him suspect that Relena was not what she seemed, even in retrospect. It was KID-quality work, but it wasn't fair to blame him for what was just a copycat. Still, he was mad, and scared, and he knew his face would betray something other than logic.

Shinichi had no such compunctions, looking immediately to Kaito when Duo brought the news, though there was no hint of accusation. More speculation. Kaito met it with what was meant to be an easy grin, but Shinichi could see some nervous tension underneath.

"Thoughts?" he asked Kaito quietly while Wufei went off to make a report to Une and Duo kicked a Preventers agent off her computer so he could start searching for Heero.

Kaito shook his head. "It seems I have a fan," he said ruefully. "First a diamond heist, now this?"

"We need to take precautions," Shinichi said, feeling his brain slip into heist-mode. "If they're as good as you..." He stopped mid-sentence. As good as KID... There _was_ one person. And between what he knew about her age and the existence of a portal through time, one way or another it was actually possible that Vermouth could have a hand in this. He blinked and massaged the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache build as he tried to get used to thinking across centuries. "If this person is as good as you, they could be impersonating any one of us at any time."

"The old face-pinch, then? Should work. Unless our mystery kidnapper happens to look exactly like one of us," Kaito said with a wry smile.

Shinichi sighed, disappointed that, in his life, that was a legitimate concern. He added it to the list right alongside unaging mobster actresses.

They explained the disguise-checking idea to Duo, who was happy enough to pinch both their cheeks, and let them give his a tug, before immediately going back to whatever he was searching for using the computer. When Wufei returned he got the same treatment (and explanation), as did Quatre and Trowa when they turned up.

Satisfied that all of them were who they were supposed to be, they set to planning. Wufei had shooed all of the Preventers agents out of the room after reporting to Une – the fewer unfamiliar faces they had to deal with, the better.

"I'm starting with the car," Duo explained, not looking up from his screen. "It definitely had the right plates – or a forgery, doesn't really matter. The point is, people notice when the Vice Foreign Minister goes somewhere. I've put in a request for any traffic cameras that caught that plate. Used your authorization, Wufei," he said without a hint of apology. Wufei just rolled his eyes, but didn't bother objecting. He would have done it himself, anyway.

"While we're waiting on that, check Relena's fan sites. If someone saw the car go by, spotted her, or recognized the diplomatic plates maybe they made a status update or something," Quatre suggested.

"Trowa, did you learn anything in the library's archives?" Shinichi asked. "It's all got to be connected."

Trowa shook his head. "I had barely started when I got Quatre's call. This takes precedence."

Shinichi nodded – he would have done the same. Still, he could wish for more data. What he had right now were half a dozen pieces of a puzzle that didn't fit together and might have a _thousand_ pieces. The portal, the sort-of poisoning, Heero's abduction... how could it all be connected? What was this organization trying to accomplish?

"Something to consider," Quatre said, watching Shinichi and seeing his frustration. "There is the slight chance that not _everything_ that's happened is connected. People try to hurt us... more often than we'd like."

"I did think of that," Shinichi said. "But there are too many coincidences. Someone just _happens_ to kidnap Heero while using KID's methods of disguise, and meanwhile there's a portal to the past that uses one of KID's old targets and opened directly onto a KID heist?" He shook his head. "I wouldn't be surprised if that's how that waitress vanished so quickly, too. She might even be the same person who abducted Heero."

"No way," Duo said. "I met up with you guys right after..." He swallowed hard. "Right after Heero left with... whoever that was. Quatre talked to the manager after and he said that waitress was working for hours before we even showed up, remember?"

"Okay, then, it's _possible_ that was a separate incident. Unlikely, though." Shinichi went quiet. He had just followed another train of thought to a disturbing conclusion he would keep to himself for now. He was fairly certain the others had already considered it, anyway. He shook himself. "Uh, regardless. For now – buddy system. There are six of us. No one goes anywhere alone, and _preferably_ we stay in groups of three if we do have to split up."

Everyone agreed, and they settled into the familiar routine of legwork – though, all done through the computers that the agents had been using to research and reverse-engineer the portal. Working independently, calling out promising leads when they found them, they searched fan sites, politician-watch sites, and traffic camera footage.

Relena called back, though she had no new information to report: her car had not left its garage all week, and no one on her staff had seen her wandering around somewhere when she was meant to be in Sanc. The pilots called in particular favors with various organizations, looking for anyone who might know a guy who knew a guy in the lookalike vehicle business, or who might have recently bought or junked a certain type of vehicle, or anything else that would help them build a trail.

Working on a kidnapping case was at least familiar, and Shinichi felt more grounded than he had since arriving in the future. Still, he couldn't help thinking that starting on the trail of a kidnapper and starting on the trail of a murderer were not that different.

Something of that must have shown on his face, because Kaito nudged him. "What's wrong?" he asked quietly. In the background, the phone calls and typing continued.

"It's... kidnapping," Shinichi said. "Everyone immediately assumed kidnapping. But this could easily be a murder case."

"You think they haven't thought of that?"

"No, I'm pretty sure they have. That's why I didn't say anything. But if it _is_ murder... then what if that waitress' motive was actually to split us up that night? They'd already gotten Heero at that point. Maybe they were hoping to catch one of the pilots alone."

"But they paired off instead," Kaito said, thinking about it. "It's... a little convoluted."

"This coming from you?"

Kaito grinned and Shinichi felt something in his chest unclench a little. If Kaito could still smile, he figured, things couldn't be hopeless. "I mean, it's a big risk to take on the _hope_ that you'll catch one alone. You'd have to _hope_ someone caught you trying to 'poison' them, _hope_ you could run, _hope_ they'd give chase, and _hope_ they'd all split up. Leaves way too much to luck." He sniffed haughtily. "If they're really fans of mine, they can do better."

"Maybe they weren't counting on the two of us being there. If it was only Duo, Trowa, and Quatre, they'd've _had_ to split up."

"Unless Wufei happened to be with them. And don't forget the strangest part of this whole thing – how did they even know we'd be eating at that café? Did we just _happen_ to pick the café with the Organization part-timer?"

"If it was you, what would you have done?"

Kaito thought about it for a few moments, tipping his chair back on two legs. Then he let it fall forward with a thud. "I'd've had eyes on us, watched where we were going, then knocked out the waitress and disguised myself as her. So it wouldn't matter where we ate – I could find someone to impersonate pretty much anywhere."

"That's what I thought," Shinichi said.

"Don't sound so satisfied," Kaito said, punching his shoulder. "You still wouldn't have caught me."

"Well, here's hoping the Organization isn't as good as you."

Kaito beamed at him. " _No one's_ as good as me."

"Hey, got something," Duo said. All heads turned toward him. "Traffic cams caught the car heading north pretty consistently. Then it drops off. I think they abandoned it somewhere in this area," Duo said, bringing up a map. "If they'd kept on going, the next cams would have caught them and there's no roads that aren't monitored."

"Good place to abandon a car," Wufei said. "Kind of neighborhood no one will look twice at you if you're moving an unconscious person into the back of an inconspicuous van."

"Oh, they'll look twice," Duo said. "They just won't talk about it unless you know how to ask."

"Time for some fieldwork?" Quatre asked, standing and stretching.

"Time for some fieldwork," Duo replied, wearing an expression that few people ever had the chance to talk about later. It took a special kind of crazy to try and kidnap Heero Yuy – for more reasons than one.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg what is going on. WHO'S DRIVING THIS FIC?!
> 
> NEXT CONAN'S HINT!  
> "Pomplemousse."


	15. In Which Murder is No Way to Support Local Business

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been informed that the email notification for the update last week didn't actually go out, so make sure you haven't missed the previous chapter! There's BRUNCH!

"Think that's it?" Quatre asked, sticking his hands in his pockets. The sun had dropped behind the buildings and it was getting cooler out. They had spent the entire day split into two search parties very carefully talking to the very suspicious inhabitants of this part of the city. This had led them to the chop shop that had acquired the car they were looking for (stripped of plates and any identifying marks), then to a little old lady (and her honor guard of protective street urchins) who watched everything that happened on her street all day, down several trails of dead ends, and finally... here.

"Well it wasn't the first three run-down, abandoned warehouses we checked so I'd say we're due," Wufei said.

"Those kids said they saw the van pull into an old warehouse near where all the construction is happening," Shinichi reviewed, looking around. "This one's closer to the construction than the others."

The street they were on looked as though it had once been the main street of a nice neighborhood. It was lined with little shops – mostly vacant and boarded now – with apartments over them. The apartments all had curtains drawn over grimy windows and were quite dark. Trash had collected in the doorways. The only place that looked like it had some life was what seemed to be a pub in the middle of the block, which a neon sign proclaimed to be the Blue Rocket. Someone had swept the stoop and even made an effort to cheer up the street with long planters of tall purple flowers set on the sidewalk under the front windows.

Nothing on the street was over two stories, which meant they could see the warehouse that dominated the next block down clearly. They could also see the skeleton of a high-rise looming behind the little shops and apartments. Signage on the in-progress building proclaimed that it would soon be luxury condominiums. The sole car parked on the street (in front of the Blue Rocket, in fact) also belonged to the construction company: a white pickup truck, its bed full of tools and equipment and a logo emblazoned on the side.

"That's the construction Granny mentioned," Duo said with a nod to the imminent condos. "She said it was taking over the neighborhood. Doesn't look like there's much to take over."

"Good place to hold a hostage," Trowa said. Duo snorted and started off down the street. Trowa nudged Kaito and glanced up to the roofs. Kaito nodded, snagged Duo by his sleeve, and the three of them faded into an alleyway to follow along from above.

Wufei, Quatre, and Shinichi walked a little more slowly, giving the others a chance to go on ahead and keeping an eye out for any signs of life. They weren't exactly approaching the warehouse head-on, but they didn't have as much cover as any of them would have liked, either. Most of the buildings around the warehouse had been demolished, leaving it huddled alone on a block of its own. This forgotten street was the only thing around, though Wufei was starting to wonder if they'd be better off coming through the construction site.

"Hey," Kaito breathed in Shinichi's ear. Shinichi did _not_ jump, but it was a near thing. Quatre and Wufei turned to look. Trowa and Duo had appeared, too. They'd already been to the end of the rooftops and back.

"Anything?" Quatre asked.

"A van matching our description is parked outside. It looks abandoned, but... perhaps some caution," Trowa said.

"Right," Quatre said. "Kaito, Trowa, you head back up. Duo—"

A scream tore through the night and six heads snapped around – to the Blue Rocket, which they had just passed. The scream was followed up by more general shouting and commotion, the noise of which spilled onto the street as the door slammed open and a woman stumbled out, hugging herself with blood-covered hands. Shinichi had already taken two steps toward the bar when Duo stopped him.

"Where are you going?"

"I can't just ignore that," Shinichi said. A second woman had come out of the bar and taken the first by the shoulders, guiding her back in.

"I can't either," Wufei said grimly. He cast a glance back over his shoulder at the warehouse and came to a decision. "Quatre, Duo, and Trowa head out and recon – keep to the roofs, just in case. Call us immediately if there's anyone still there, or if they come back for the van. The detective and I will check out the bar – just a quick look so I can call in Preventers back-up if necessary. Kaito..."

"Three and three right? I'm coming with you."

Wufei nodded. Duo looked torn for half a second before shaking his head and running off, Quatre and Trowa close behind him.

Shinichi was already across the street approaching the Blue Rocket. He slowed as he came to the door, taking in details. The Blue Rocket shared walls with its neighbors on either side, with no gaps between. Unlike most of the other storefronts including the ones it was attached to, the bar did not have apartments overhead and was only one storey. The roof was covered in old fashioned shingles, sloping down from a very shallow peak into a slight overhang above the sidewalk.

The windows, while not exactly clean, at least seemed to have a less desolate sort of grime coating them than the other windows on the block. A light breeze wended its way through the planters out front, lifting a pleasant, sort of tangerine smell from the flowers. The single door was made of sturdy wood with a large panel of frosted glass stretching from top to bottom. The glass glowed with homey light from inside, setting off the name of the bar where it was painted on the window in blocky letters.

There was a bloody handprint just beneath them.

Suddenly the smell of the flowers and the warm yellow light from the windows was nauseating and Shinichi shoved the door open.

It was a small place, one large room done mostly in dark wood with just three booths along each of the side walls and three larger round tables with sturdy chairs in the middle. A long, gleaming bar with a couple of stools lined the back wall. Dozens of glass bottles were shelved on the wall behind the bar, arranged around a miniature version of the neon sign that hung out front. There was a door on either side of that back wall; the one on the left was a swinging door with a porthole – probably the kitchen – and the one on the right had a "Restrooms" sign over it.

"We're closed." The second woman, the one who had pulled the first back into the bar moments ago, spoke.

"We're not customers," Wufei said, pulling out his badge. He'd entered right on the heels of Shinichi, intending to give him a firm talking-to later about bursting in to an unknown situation. "Preventer Chang. We were in the area and heard the screams. Is someone injured?"

Shinichi already knew that the answer was no. There were nine people in the bar aside from Kaito, Wufei, and himself, and all of them had expressions on their faces that Shinichi was all too familiar with. Shock. Disbelief. Panic mixed with grief. He didn't say anything, though. Let them have a chance to lie, to attempt to hide the murder.

He glanced quickly at each face, compiling data rapidly.

First there was the woman with the bloody hands, the one who'd run out into the street. She had long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail with a wild fringe of bangs and was seated at one of the round tables, along with four men. There was an empty fifth chair with an unfinished pint of beer in front of it. The woman was dressed nicely, but casually – jeans and a blouse, minimal jewelry and makeup. The latter wasn't smudged. She hadn't cried. She was looking down at her hands with wide, unblinking eyes. Shinichi pegged her as the one who had found the body. On the table in front of her was a large manila envelope with a red smear on it – the kind that would happen if you got your hands covered in blood and then grabbed it carelessly.

Behind her, with one hand on her shoulder, stood the woman who had spoken. She wore a black tank top and jeans, and an apron with a bar towel shoved into it. Employee. Shinichi took stock. Only employee. Bartender, probably. Her straight black hair brushed her jawline and she was biting her bottom lip, preparing to answer Wufei.

The four men sitting at the table with the brown-haired woman were clearly construction workers, wearing the kind of jeans meant to get beat up and the kind of boots that might do the beating up. All with dark hair and various states of stubble between them. All had drinks in front of them. The woman did not.

Based on how closely they were sitting, the men were all casual friends as well as coworkers – probably hit this bar after work regularly but didn't spend much time together outside of work otherwise. A few of them still had toolbelts with them, though they'd been draped over the backs of chairs. They wouldn't have all ridden here in the truck; probably walked from the construction site, and, given the area, hadn't wanted to leave anything portable behind.

Two of the men kept looking at each other silently, as though trying to confirm that whatever was happening was really happening. The other two were staring hard at the brown haired woman across from them, though they didn't seem to be aware they were doing it.

Off to the side in a booth along the wall sat an elderly man and woman and a young woman in her early twenties – granddaughter, Shinichi guessed. They seemed removed from the rest of the group, though not unaffected. Their eyes were wide and their food was getting cold.

The entire assessment took moments.

"No... not injured," said the bartender slowly. She took a deep breath. "He's... there's been..." She shook her head, unable to maintain her composure and still speak, but her eyes darted to the door to the restrooms. Shinichi let out his breath in a huff. So that's where it was.

"I'll go check out the body," he murmured to Wufei. "You collect statements." He was already moving when Wufei grabbed his sleeve.

"Do _not_ go off on your own," he hissed, though his face looked undecided. Shinichi could tell he'd come to the same conclusions Shinichi had: they needed to check the body, but they couldn't leave all of these people alone to get their stories straight. Nor could they separate, not when they _knew_ the Organization had been active in this area not long ago. The last thing they needed was for one of them to end up impersonated.

"Passwords," Kaito said brightly, coming between them. He dropped his voice to a whisper that was barely audible even to Shinichi and Wufei, and made sure his back was to the rest of the room. "Say 'pomplemousse' when we meet back up. The other will respond with 'croissant'. Plus, we can always do the pinch test."

Wufei pursed his lips but nodded curtly. "Fine. Let me know if you find anything the local police couldn't handle – we can call this in and meet back up with the others."

Shinichi nodded. He could see Wufei was more worried about Heero than he wanted to let on, but Quatre, Duo, and Trowa hadn't called yet so it wasn't likely they'd be doing more good with them. Besides...

"Are you thinking it's not coincidence?" Kaito asked, trailing Shinichi through the door to the restrooms. The door opened onto a short, straight hallway with two doors along the right (men's and women's), a door marked "Exit" at the end, and one swinging door on the left, probably leading to the kitchens so that the staff could take trash out easily.

"Hard to say," Shinichi said. "I think I might have a slightly distorted perception of how much murder is a normal amount of murder."

"That's depressing."

"Probably not as depressing as what we're about to see. Are you...?" Shinichi trailed off with his hand on the men's room door.

"I'll be fine. This isn't the first time I've helped you out on a case, you know."

"Right." Shinichi took a deep breath and gently shoved the door open, poking his head in first.

The bathroom wasn't large: three urinals along the same wall as the door, plus two stalls. One of the urinals was wrapped in a garbage bag and duct tape and the bathroom had the same slightly sour smell that most public men's rooms acquired – though this one also had an overlying scent of blood. Not that anyone would need that to see that murder had happened here.

It would be impossible to miss the body, lying face-down with its feet pointing toward the door between the stalls and the sink. There was enough clearance to open the door all the way and step inside without disturbing anything, so Shinichi did. Kaito came too, just as careful.

Most of the blood was splattered around the head. It was smeared a bit – probably where the brown-haired woman had knelt to check for a pulse. To see if he was alive? Or to make sure he was dead? Shinichi shook his head. No point in wondering about that just now.

The guy was of average height, maybe five foot nine. He was dressed similarly to the construction workers out front. With the abandoned beer on the table, Shinichi felt confident in calling this guy one of them.

He stepped gingerly closer to check the head wound that appeared to be the cause of this man's demise. It was a bad one. There were more things than blood visible around it. Shinichi took in the details and then turned away quickly, breathing through his mouth.

"Overhand blow with a heavy, narrow object. From behind. The wound is more to the right, so there's a good chance the killer is right-handed. And strong. It only took one blow."

"Any chance it's _not_ one of those people out there?" Kaito asked, gesturing toward the bar.

"Depends. It's possible someone saw a crazed maniac run into the bathroom, attack this guy, and then run off but... I don't usually get that lucky. We'll have to check about that back door, though."

"All right," Kaito said. Then, with an assessing glance, "Ready?"

"Yeah. Hang on, though," he said. "Let's go back through the kitchen."

They went through the staff door across the hall from the restrooms and passed through the small, tiled kitchen. There were two stacked ovens, a few feet of food preparation space with pots and pans hanging overhead, a large walk-in freezer, a six-burner stovetop, and a few racks of shelving. In short, it was an average restaurant kitchen, if a little small. There was no handy murder weapon lying around in plain sight. Shinichi and Kaito emerged back into the bar through the swinging door, and if anyone thought that was strange, no one said anything.

They hadn't been in the back very long. Wufei had only talked to a few of the patrons, starting with the woman who'd found the body. He was in the middle of interviewing one of the construction workers (quietly in a booth in the corner while keeping an eye on the others to see who was swapping stories) when he saw Kaito and Shinichi come back.

"Pomplemousse," Kaito said seriously when Wufei came over to them, making sure that his lips were hidden from view of the room and that no one would overhear.

"What? Oh. Croissant," Wufei said crossly. He cast a suspicious look at Shinichi.

"We were together the whole time," Kaito said as Shinichi rolled his eyes.

"Fine. Well?"

"Definitely a murder. It looks fairly straightforward. You can probably just call in the police and let them handle it," Shinichi said.

"But you'd rather handle it yourself?" Wufei asked, correctly interpreting Shinichi's tone.

"I have a hard time walking away from a murder," Shinichi said. "Any objection to sticking around until the police get here? Unless – Quatre and the others haven't called, have they?"

"No. That probably means the place is really abandoned and they're scouring it for any kind of evidence of where we can look next." Wufei's hand clenched into a fist and then relaxed. "I'll call this in. You start with Grandpa over there," Wufei said with a nod to the elderly couple and their granddaughter. "And _you_ ," he said to Kaito, "are not a trained detective, so observation only, got it?"

Kaito saluted lazily.

 

By the time they'd talked to everyone they'd gathered the following data:

The victim's name was Takayuki Yamada. He was the foreman of the nearby construction site. The four construction workers here were part of his crew. He'd had a recent argument with one of them – Izumo Okawa – but seemed to be on decent terms with the other three.

The brown-haired woman, Shino Yamada, was his wife, though the envelope she'd had on the table in front of her contained divorce papers that her husband had not signed.

The bartender, Mayoko Ikehara, had no relationship with the victim other than being the bartender at his regular bar. She was on duty alone tonight – most nights, really, since there were no crowds these days, and given the neighborhood she always made double sure that the back door was locked and the alarm was armed.

The Nakahara family – grandparents and granddaughter – lived just a block over in the apartment above the shop they owned. They were the last hold-out business on their street, which otherwise was entirely slated for demolition to expand the grounds of the condo complex. They were under a lot of pressure to sell, but had no desire to move their little family. ( _"Grandma and Grandpa don't want to move," their granddaughter, Ishi, had said. "I don't care. I could stand to be in a more lively part of town."_ )

That night, the four construction workers and the foreman had come in at the usual time and ordered the usual drinks. ( _"Beers all around – nothing fancy, just whatever's on tap, same as every night," Ikehara had told Shinichi._ )

Shortly after they settled in, the Nakahara family had arrived. ( _"Thought about leaving when we saw who was here," Mrs. Nakahara had said with a nod at the construction crew. "But it ain't their fault, they're just doing as they're told. And we like to support the local businesses – what's left of 'em."_ ) They ordered their food and it looked like it was just going to be a quiet night like any other.

Then the foreman had gotten up to go to the bathroom. ( _"If you ask me, he looked drunk," one of the construction workers said. "I wasn't really paying attention, but I'm pretty sure that was his first beer. And he didn't even finish it. But he's been written up for drinking on the job before..."_ )

No sooner had Yamada gone through the door, than Okawa had gotten up and followed him, saying he wanted a word. ( _"Did he have his tool belt with him?" Shinichi had asked Ikehara. She didn't know._

_"I was in the back. I didn't actually see him get up and follow Yamada."_

_"You were in the back?"_

_"I'm the only one working. Who else is going to make the food? I trust these guys – they're in here every day. I know them. They're not gonna let anything bad happ— oh. Well."_ )

Okawa had emerged after only a minute or two, shaking his head and muttering about how Yamada was impossible to talk to right now. ( _"It was a payment dispute," one of Okawa's colleagues had told Wufei. "Okawa wanted to claim pay for overtime Yamada hadn't authorized. It's not the first time it's happened. But if we didn't work over sometimes, we'd be way behind schedule. Yamada almost never authorizes it, but then he gets mad when we're behind. Or, I guess he used to get mad. Geez. I can't believe this."_ )

Ikehara had come back out a little while later with the Nakaharas' food and Okawa had ordered another beer. ( _"Okawa didn't seem drunk, no. He'd only had one before that. Unless he was pre-gaming, you know?" said one of the other construction workers. "What? No – I didn't see any blood on his hands. And his tools were here the whole time."_ )

That was when Shino Yamada burst into the Blue Rocket, clutching her envelope of divorce papers and demanding to know where her husband was. ( _"He's been avoiding her for a month, trying not to sign those papers," Okawa told them. "Just to piss her off, I think."_ ) The crew told her that he was in the bathroom. She was so angry she refused to wait and burst in herself... ( _"I practically tripped over him," she'd said, and now the sobs were starting to work their way out of her chest, dry and heaving. "I didn't even see... his head. If I had, I wouldn't have... it would have been obvious that there was nothing..." She stared at her hands, which she had finally washed._ )

 

"Well... wife or disgruntled construction worker?" Wufei asked in an undertone when they finished speaking with everyone.

"Depends," Shinichi said, casting a glance out the windows. Police around here sure did take their time. "She's kind of short, but with the right murder weapon..."

"We didn't check very thoroughly. It has to still be here – the alarm would have gone off if someone had ducked into the alley to ditch it," Kaito said.

"Unless the bartender did it and disabled the alarm," Shinichi pointed out. "No motive, though. That we know of." The thought of an affair with the foreman, or with the foreman's wife, had crossed his mind, what with the divorce and all. Mrs. Yamada had assured them that she was asking for the divorce because Mr. Yamada was just "a jerk" but, well... they would find out. "We'll have to look. If we find a lead pipe stashed in the dumpster or something, we'll look more closely at Ikehara."

"That means splitting up again," Wufei said. "Which of you is more likely to hold your own in case of an ambush?" Shinichi pointed at Kaito at the same time as Kaito raised his hand. "All right then, detective, you're with me. Kaito, you're staying here this time."

 

Finding the murder weapon actually proved to be laughably easy. Their plan was to check the women's bathroom, then search the kitchen more thoroughly, then check the men's room again since Shinichi hadn't checked the stalls. Then, if they still hadn't found it, they'd ask Ikehara to disengage the back door alarm and check the alley behind the bar.

But as it turned out, the weapon was in the women's restroom. They found it as soon as they lifted the lid off of the garbage can to check: a heavy iron crowbar, still... dirty... on one end. It was a terrible, hasty hiding job. Wufei pulled the crowbar out, using a paper towel to avoid getting his fingerprints on it while he took a closer look.

"Pretty sure someone would have mentioned if Mrs. Yamada had run back here brandishing a crowbar," Shinichi commented. "And it's not exactly normal equipment to keep in the back of a restaurant."

"Unless you were planning this for a while. A regular could have inconspicuously brought the crowbar back here on a different night and then retrieved it tonight."

"Then why not also plan a better hiding place while you were at it?" Shinichi shook his head. "I don't know. Put it back, I don't think we should take it up front with us. The police can bag it when they get here."

"If they ever get here... I have a feeling I'm going to be writing a negative report to the district supervisor," Wufei said, placing the crowbar back in the trashcan.

 

Back up front (after trading passwords), Shinichi pulled Ikehara aside. "Hey, would you happen to have a crowbar around here?"

"Uh, yeah. We keep one in the back for opening produce crates. Why do you need one?"

"Where do you keep it?" he asked instead of answering.

"Usually just propped up by the back door since that's where we take deliveries. And the health inspector said we can't have it in the kitchen. Wait." She paled. "Do you mean... is that how... oh, God, I'm going to be sick."

"I wouldn't recommend it. Both bathrooms are part of a crime scene now."

Ikehara dropped into a chair next to Mrs. Yamada, looking faint.

Shinichi frowned, looking from Mrs. Yamada to Okawa. These were the two most likely suspects now, since both had been alone with the foreman, but Mrs. Yamada was... well, short. He doubted that she could have hit her husband's head as high as the wound had been. Plus she didn't look particularly strong. She could have killed him with a crowbar, but it would have taken multiple blows.

Okawa, then... Shinichi's eyes narrowed, though, as Okawa picked up his beer and drained the last of it. With his left hand. He had a watch on his right. The crown faced his wrist – a specially made watch for left-handed people. Shinichi moved to the bar and grabbed one of the paper printouts of the weekly specials, crumpling it up into a ball.

"Hey, Okawa!" he called. "Catch!" He tossed the ball of paper at the startled man, who lifted his left hand to catch it on reflex, looking completely confused. "You're left-handed," Shinichi said. "Interesting."

"It is?" Okawa asked, slightly panicked. That was interesting, too. Unless he was a good actor. But you couldn't act your way out of wearing a white shirt to a murder. And if he'd planned ahead enough to bring a spare shirt in to the bar with him, surely he would have planned a better hiding place for the murder weapon.

"I think I've just ruled out both of our suspects," Shinichi told Kaito and Wufei quietly. "Unless Mrs. Yamada is hiding some kind of freak jumping ability and ridiculous upper-arm strength. I want to examine the body again."

"You two go," Wufei said. "I'm going to call headquarters. Something's not right about how long it's taking the police to get here."

 

Shinichi and Kaito stepped back into the men's bathroom with some reluctance. Ikehara had given them disposable gloves from a large box in the kitchen, and both pulled them on now – though Shinichi had no intention of letting Kaito touch the body.

They took several pictures on their phones of every angle of the scene as they'd originally found it, and then Shinichi carefully turned over the body, looking for signs of other wounds. There were no obvious ones. Just Mr. Yamada's pale face staring sightlessly upward. Shinichi sighed and went to close the eyes, but then paused. Bloodshot. Very.

He checked the neck, even pulling the shirt collar aside. No ligature marks.

Carefully, he pried the mouth open, wishing he had a mask. Slightly enlarged tongue. He didn't have the tools to check, but there was probably throat inflammation, congestion... He closed the mouth and took a closer look at the skin around the eyes. Definite blood vessel damage...

"Asphyxiation...?" Shinichi said, almost to himself. Kaito was looking down at him with an inscrutable expression – like he wanted to jump on Shinichi but was also very aware that there was a corpse in the room with them. Shinichi didn't notice. He was looking at Kaito but his focus was elsewhere. "Why... oh. Oh. Okay!"

He shot to his feet and bolted out the door. Kaito was startled, but kept up, making sure that Shinichi never actually left his sight.

Shinichi burst back into the bar and bee-lined for the table where the construction workers had been sitting. They weren't sitting there anymore – they had left it to Mrs. Yamada and her blood-stained divorce papers. But Mr. Yamada's half-finished beer was there. Shinichi dropped to his knees beside the table, putting the beer at eye-level. Then he stood, craned over it, observed it from every angle, and caught a faint citrus note quite out of place in a cheap domestic beer. Then he reached out for the glass—

"Shinichi!" Kaito's voice sounded strangled. Shinichi gave him an odd look.

"Gloves," he said, waving one still-gloved hand. Kaito sighed in relief. "Good point, though... Has anyone touched this glass? Have you so much as laid a finger on it?" he asked the room at large. Everyone started slightly at his raised voice, but then shook their heads. "Good." He eyed the construction workers – they had been sitting with the victim. They could have slipped it in... but no. All of their hands were covered in the tiny scrapes and cuts common to their profession; no way they'd risk it. Then...

Shinichi darted to the front door and stuck his head out, breathing deeply. Then he turned back inside and took a breath, about to make an accusation... and paused. Why? Why would she have done it? He was certain she was the culprit, but without motive... well, perhaps she would tell them after he revealed her guilt. It happened often enough.

"Mayoko Ikehara," Shinichi said quietly. "You killed Yamada."

"Me?" Ikehara laughed a little, but her eyes were sharp. "Why would I do that?"

 _She knows I don't know_. "You were the only one who could have. You always wear gloves when preparing food – no one would think it was odd if you still had them on when you served the drinks. He was poisoned with aconite – or more specifically, actual monkshood root. It acts much more quickly when ingested, and has a distinct smell. But it's deadly if absorbed through the skin, as well. Yamada did both.

"He was pretty far gone when Okawa followed him into the bathroom. You were already in the kitchen when that happened. You waited for Okawa to go back into the bar, then came through the back and attacked Yamada in the bathroom. Maybe he had already collapsed when you hit him with the crowbar, or maybe he was so far gone it didn't matter how hard you hit him. You saw the perfect opportunity to frame Okawa and you took it, hiding the weapon in an obvious place so we'd be thrown off the trail of the poison."

Everyone was staring at her, but Ikehara didn't seem impressed. "That's an interesting story, but you still haven't explained _why_ I would do such a thing." She wasn't even pretending to be offended or scared. She was _challenging_ him. This was no venally motivated crime...

Shinichi shuffled through all of the data, turning it this way and that like a puzzle piece until he looked up at the neon sign over the bar and everything _clicked_. The Blue Rocket. He knew exactly why she had done it, just _knew_ it even independently of the evidence.

But then the puzzle broke apart, pieces scattering everywhere, because his conclusion made _no sense_.

He said it anyway. "The Blue Rocket. Another name for monkshood. The flowers in the planters out front. Deliberately using the roots instead of a very easy-to-make tincture that would have been undetectable..." Shinichi's fists clenched. "You _wanted_ it to be solvable. You were—" _Testing me_ , he almost said. But no one here knew who he was. He wasn't some famous detective that insane criminals might try to take on in a battle of wits. That was the part that didn't make sense. Who had she been trying to lure?

"—distracting you, actually," Ikehara said with a smile. "And now it's time for me to go."

"Like hell," Wufei growled, already reaching for her, handcuffs ready. But a gray puff of smoke erupted around her and, though Wufei lunged into it, he came out the other side empty handed.

"KID!" Shinichi called to Kaito, already running for the hallway that led to the back door. Kaito gave him a startled look, then smirked and went for the kitchen door. Shinichi burst into the hallway and out the back door, oblivious to the alarm that suddenly began blaring, while Wufei stopped to check both bathrooms. The door from the kitchen slammed open and Kaito shook his head – not in there – and both joined Shinichi in the alley, where he was looking frantically around.

"No roof access inside... and she didn't run past any of us to the front door," he said, glaring at the featureless brick walls surrounding them. "No fire escapes out here. Where the _hell..._ " He broke off and looked hopefully to Kaito, who shook his head and let his face show his frustration.

"Not even a window. If I was planning on pulling something like this, I would have picked _anywhere else_ ," he said. "I'm sorry, Shinichi. I don't know how she did that."

"Une is going to have my _skin_ for this one," Wufei muttered. "Let's go back in. We don't want our witnesses to get any ideas about wandering off."

"Wait," Shinichi said, eyeing both of them. "Pomplemousse."

"Croissant," both Wufei and Kaito said at the same time, one through gritted teeth and the other with a pleased grin. Shinichi relaxed. "Good. Let's go. The Preventers should be here soon, right?"

"God willing," Wufei said, pulling open the back door. Inside, he jammed an elbow into the alarm mechanism to shut it up. It gave a small puff of smoke and several sparks and whined its way to death. Wufei looked happier. "They told me that there was a high-speed car chase not far from here, and that's what pulled all the police away. It's also tangling up traffic pretty badly so they're not sure... what's this?"

There was a post-it note stuck to the door leading back into the bar. It read:

_Thanks for stopping to play, but next time keep your eye on the ball~_

"Next time?!" Wufei growled.

But Shinichi was paying more attention to the end of the sentence. _A distraction._ "Wufei, shouldn't we have heard from the others by now?"

Wufei's eyes widened and he went still for a moment. Then he broke into a sprint, shoving through the door, running through the bar and out into the street, never breaking stride as he ran for the warehouse, witnesses and Preventers be damned. Kaito and Shinichi were directly behind him, all three abandoning stealth in favor of speed.

The warehouse sat silent; Shinichi supposed they should count themselves lucky it wasn't on fire or besieged by Organization members or something. The white van they'd been tracking wasn't anywhere to be seen, though. Wufei found an entrance first, kicking the door down with barely a pause and diving through it with his gun ready.

He needn't have bothered.

The warehouse was completely empty, a huge echoing space lit only by orange-ish streetlights leaking in through the narrow windows near the roof. There was absolutely nothing obstructing their view of Quatre, Duo, and Trowa sprawled motionless in the exact center of the floor.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bring you this update from a computer that is crumbling under my hands, because that is how much I love you. Don't worry, the story is backed up :)
> 
> NEXT CONAN'S HINT!  
> "Dust trails?!"


	16. In Which the Preventers Deserve Medals for Getting Anything Done While These Maniacs Are Running Around

Shinichi and Kaito dashed forward, ignoring Wufei's wordless cry of caution. But it wasn't a trap; nothing sprang out, nothing barred them from reaching the three still figures. Wufei covered them anyway, eyes darting suspiciously around the cavernous space while Shinichi and Kaito checked pulses – and faces.

They weren't disguised. And they seemed unhurt – only sleeping. Shinichi didn't need Kaito's significant look to recognize the effects of his particular cocktail of sleeping gas. The fact that whoever had used it on them had known exactly how much would be an effective dose did not escape him either. And it must have been _very_ precisely measured because all three were beginning to stir.

After only a moment of puzzled blinking, Quatre hurriedly sat up and looked around for Trowa. Steady green eyes met his unflinchingly and Quatre relaxed marginally before looking down at Duo, still flat on his back, though awake.

Duo lifted his hands to his face, pressing the heels to his eyes and let out a long, inarticulate groan of frustration, followed seamlessly by a string of expletives. Wufei waited for him to start to repeat himself, then nudged him roughly in the side with his foot.

"Enough. Report."

"No," Quatre said, getting to his feet and taking a step away from Wufei, Shinichi, and Kaito with a cold look in his eye. Trowa stepped subtly behind him, three short knives appearing between his fingers, backing him up.

"It's okay," Shinichi said, raising his hands. "Look." He tugged at his own face. Trowa stepped forward to test it himself, knives still present. Then he checked Wufei and Kaito. "We were together the whole time. And we tested you guys while you were out," Shinichi assured him. Trowa nodded once and the knives vanished, and Quatre's face changed instantly to his habitual pleasant, open expression. Duo hadn't moved from his position on the floor and watched the entire exchange from between his fingers.

"I hate our lives. I hate them," he said wearily. Shinichi snorted and turned away, beginning a slow prowl around the warehouse looking for clues.

"What happened?" Kaito asked, giving Duo a hand up and helping him knock the dust off of his clothes.

"An ambush," Quatre said. "It was like they were expecting us. Maybe one of the people we talked to was a Clubs contact."

"A trap?" Wufei asked. "But..."

Quatre shook his head. "No, not a trap – otherwise, why leave us? I don't think they were that prepared. They just had a little notice, enough to see us coming and pull up stakes."

What Shinichi was seeing seemed to support that conclusion. The warehouse was not as empty as it had appeared at first glance. Here and there were the signs of people having departed in haste – a dropped or forgotten coil of industrial extension cord, a shattered syringe, a trampled paper flu mask. A small steel surgical table had been shoved into one corner haphazardly. He stepped carefully on his way to examine it, easily avoiding the dusty trail of footprints leading to the center of the warehouse and keeping an eye out for any more.

"We didn't even see them," Trowa was telling Wufei back in the center of the warehouse. "They caught us outside and dropped a gas canister. It must have been very concentrated to work in the open air like that, but... I don't remember anything after," he said, looking to Quatre and Duo for confirmation. They shook their heads.

Shinichi found what appeared to be a supply closet and tried the doorknob. It opened outward and he poked his head inside, looking around for a light switch or pull-chain. When he found it, it illuminated a tiny, dusty cubby of a closet with empty metal shelves along the walls, and an air duct in the ceiling – way too small even for Heero to crawl through.

"So they stashed you inside so no one would see you and get suspicious and finished packing up while me, Wufei, and Shinichi were distracted with a murder," Kaito said, since Shinichi wasn't around to do the deducing.

"Murder?" Quatre asked, startled. Wufei very briefly outlined what had happened at the Blue Rocket and Duo shook his head.

"Great, the food service industry branch of the Clubs strikes again. What is _with_ these people?"

"That's a really good question, actually," Shinichi said, walking back over to the group.

"No need to sound so surprised," Duo said. Then his eyes darted down to Shinichi's hand. "What's that?"

Shinichi was holding a few inches of torn olive-green fabric. "I found it caught on one of the shelves in that closet," he said. "But the— hey wait!" Duo had started marching over to the closet to check it out for himself, but Shinichi darted in front of him. "Don't mess up the dust trails!"

"Dust trails?!"

"Yeah, there's something—"

Duo snatched the fabric out of his hand. "Heero was _here_. They were holding him in a _supply closet_. You know what that tells me, detective? It tells me he's _unconscious_ because no way in hell is a supply closet gonna hold Heero Yuy. He was here an hour ago, and we are _wasting time_!"

Shinichi blinked, startled by the snarl on Duo's face, which was rather closer to his own than it had been a moment ago. Quatre came up behind Duo and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. Duo subsided, though the hand clenching the fabric was white-knuckled.

"Here's what we're going to do," Quatre said briskly, but calmly. "We know they're using the van for transport. They can't have gotten far in an hour. We'll track them the same way we tracked them here."

"But—" Shinichi started.

"Don't worry, we can avoid another ambush by using official Preventers channels this time instead of talking to civilians who might be Clubs agents." Everyone was nodding and had begun moving for the exit as Quatre laid out the plan. "Wufei, we need the—"

"WAIT!" Shinichi shouted. Everyone stopped, looking at him curiously, even Kaito. "I don't think Heero was ever here. The van is a red herring. They _want_ us to go off chasing it." He rolled his eyes at their blank looks. "The dust! The footprints! If they've been using this place for days, all this dust should be kicked around. We shouldn't be able to pick out a trail at all, much less be able to tell that all of these tracks were made either by one person or two people with very similar shoe sizes," Shinichi said. "The things they left are scattered all around the room, but the footprints are concentrated here at the center. None go to the supply closet, or to that surgical table over there. Which, by the way, is also covered in dust. As is the supply closet and that scrap of fabric."

"Soo..." Kaito said and Shinichi wondered if he was being deliberately obtuse.

"So they didn't _just_ pull up stakes. Stakes have been pulled up for ages. They wanted us to _think_ they were on the run and send us haring off. But they didn't count on the construction nearby, which has increased the amount of dust and grime around here – remember how dirty all the windows in the neighborhood are? I'd guess they set the scene and didn't come back here until today when they heard we were following the trail here. Then they staged the murder and the ambush to make it look like they were running."

Kaito looked unsure, which made Shinichi hesitate, going back over his deductions to see what he'd missed. "But there _was_ a trail leading here. Unless you think the whole trail was false?" Kaito said.

"That would mean buying off or replacing every single person we talked to on the way. How could they possibly have known who we would contact? They couldn't control us finding the trail, but they could control what happened when we got here... " Shinichi's eyes narrowed, his hand going to his chin. The answer was there, and what's more, he already knew it. But he had to work out _how_ he knew.

"Should we backtrack?" Kaito said. "Check into the people we talked to, just in case?"

"No way," Duo growled. Shinichi shook his head in agreement.

"No, just give me... a second..." _They knew they were going to leave a trail. They didn't know how we would follow it, so they couldn't misdirect until we got here. So they led us here deliberately. Why here? Why did they_ have _to come here? Why couldn't they take a helicopter or leave the city completely... does it matter?_

No.

"They're still here," Shinichi said, eyes widening. "Like doubling back through a stream to throw a hunter off your scent. Or..." Purple flowers. A neon sign. The scent of tangerine. "...hiding in plain sight."

Four guns came out and up. Shinichi barely paid them any mind, his feet already moving toward the exit, and then he was running, filled with that special thrill of energy that came when he saw something that was supposed to be hidden.

The Gundam pilots shouted questions after him before breaking into a run themselves, but Kaito paced him easily.

"Where are we running?" he asked, and it wasn't even difficult for him to run and talk at the same time, the bastard.

"What happened to the bartender?" Shinichi answered between breaths.

"What?"

"She vanished. How? She didn't get past us... left a note on the door... and did you notice the roof?"

" _Huh_?"

Shinichi waved off his further questions and focused on running.

 

Outside the Blue Rocket, three Preventers cars had parked haphazardly in the street. The witnesses to the murder were being let go, all except Shino Yamada who was being tucked into the back of one of the cars very clearly under arrest. Shinichi didn't pause to ask why, just sprinted for the door with Kaito close behind. An agent gave a startled exclamation as they flew past her, but Shinichi barely noticed and Kaito only gave her a little wave as he followed. The agent's further complaints were silenced when Shinichi and Kaito were trailed by Wufei and three other Gundam pilots. At that, she simply stood aside and decided that now was a good time to head back to the office and catch up on her paperwork.

Inside, Kaito was trying to calm Shinichi down. "...swarming with Preventers agents, surely they would have noticed if there was some... whatever it is you're looking for!" he was saying.

Shinichi gave him an incredulous look that was also slightly appalled. The forensics team inside the pub was eyeing them warily, but went quickly back to their business when they saw Wufei.

"Maybe we should split up," Kaito said. "And follow the other trail, too, just in case."

"Kaito, what the hell is wrong with you?" Shinichi demanded, striding toward the kitchen without even glancing around. Kaito stopped dead and looked at the ground.

"I just..." he said in a very small voice that finally made Shinichi pause and turn to look at him. "Heero's already been through so much because of us. They've had him for _days,_ Shinichi. And they're using _my_ tricks to do it. This could so easily be another misdirection…"

Shinichi put a hand out, then let it drop, completely baffled. Didn't Kaito understand? If he was right, this was the quickest way to find Heero, and if he wasn't they'd lose hardly any time. Then he realized he hadn't actually explained anything.

"Kaito, it's fine. Come on." He turned and went through the kitchen door. Duo, Trowa, and Wufei brushed past Kaito to follow, but Quatre waited for Kaito to head through, frowning slightly as he brought up the tail end of the party.

Inside the kitchen, Shinichi was hauling open the door of the huge walk-in freezer. He stepped inside, then turned to face the others, a triumphant grin on his face.

"Would you believe it's not even a little bit cold in here?" he said. Then he started examining the interior, keeping up a running commentary. "I wondered what a bar like this needed with such a large freezer – they don't prepare much food, you can tell from the size of the kitchen. But buying in bulk is cost-effective, so maybe that was it." He was shoving boxes of frozen meat – or rather, empty boxes labeled as though they contained frozen meat – aside to get at the walls. "But we also noted that there's no roof access in this building – and even if there was, the roof, you can clearly see, has no compression unit on it." Not finding what he was looking for on the walls, he moved to the floor. "External compression units can sometimes be wall-mounted, but it's certainly not on the front of the building, and the back of the building is just a blank brick wall. No compression unit means no cold. No cold means a useless, suspicious freezer."

Kaito let out an exasperated sigh. "I don't suppose it ever occurred to you that this is the _future_ and they _might_ have different technology?"

Shinichi grinned up at him and pushed down on a certain section of the floor. "Nope." Part of the floor slid away, revealing a deep, dark hole and a slim ladder leading down into it. "So who wants to go first?"

 

Wufei tried to argue for setting up a proper operation – establishing surveillance, cutting power, determining layouts – before exploring where the ladder went... but Shinichi was already halfway down before he could say two words.

When motion-sensing lights flicked on as soon as he reached the bottom, Wufei simply glared at him. Or tried to. Kaito was in the way, and then Duo, both having followed Shinichi almost immediately.

Luckily, the hallway the ladder ended up in was completely deserted, lights or no lights. It was narrow, with austere cinderblock walls and cheap laminate tile flooring. The hall was lined with institutional grey doors with thin rectangular windows just above their lever handles. The hallway ended a few hundred yards ahead in a sharp right turn. Midway down, it was bisected by another hallway. Thankfully, Shinichi _had_ paused at the bottom of the ladder instead of just running ahead. When Wufei made it to the bottom (last), he shoved the detective behind him and took point.

They moved slowly down the hallway, weapons drawn (Shinichi had been provided with a spare gun, though Kaito simply ambled along comfortably with his hands in his pockets – which was weapon enough). They walked single-file, the hall being just narrow enough to make walking side-by-side dangerous if weapons needed to be used. Duo cast an appraising look at the ceiling, but there were no convenient air ducts or easily removed tiles.

They peered through the windows of each of the doors they passed, though each seemed only to hold a dark, unused lab. Sheets covered the lab tables and there were no experiments in progress or helpful clues left displayed on any of the powered-down computers. They tested the doors cautiously, but since they were locked, and because none of the small labs contained another door or obvious exit, they passed them by, Trowa walking backward at the rear just in case.

When they reached the intersection halfway down the hall, Wufei and Duo headed left while Quatre and Trowa headed right, leaving Kaito and Shinichi to continue onward. There was a brief delay while Wufei tried to wordlessly convince Kaito and Shinichi to separate so that each could be accompanied by a Gundam pilot, but Kaito stubbornly refused and Shinichi backed him up. Not willing to attract attention with a prolonged argument, Wufei flung his hands in the air and stalked off with Duo, who left with a lewd wink. Kaito grinned at Shinichi, but Shinichi was already moving forward.

Quatre watched both pairs walk away, a small line between his eyebrows, until Trowa rested a hand on his shoulder. His tilted head asked a question, and Quatre shook his head in response before taking the lead down their hallway.

 

The rest of the hallway Shinichi and Kaito were exploring was much like the first half: locked doors and empty labs, though Kaito's eyes darted everywhere looking for something more.

"You seem... jittery," Shinichi said in an undertone after checking yet another locked door. Kaito gave him a startled look, as if he had no idea how closely Shinichi was watching him, then shrugged easily.

"I just wasn't expecting this," he said.

"Were you expecting _any_ of this?" Shinichi asked, eyebrows raised. Kaito just gave him a tight little smile and kept moving.

The two slowed before reaching the turn at the end of the hall, both pressing against the right wall and peering carefully around the corner.

The hallway ended abruptly after the turn. One wall held an elevator, the other a door to a stairwell. At the end of the hall was a door identical to all of the lab doors they had just passed – but in this one, a light was on.

Shinichi pulled his head back. "What do you think?"

"I think you should give me a chance to figure out if there's another entrance to that room so we can do something _other_ than just barging in head-first. I also think we should call for backup. I also _also_ think that you will hate that plan because you are a terribly impatient detective."

"Well maybe we should just take a closer look..."

Kaito rolled his eyes, but caught Shinichi by the back of the collar as he was about to turn the corner. "If it's a question of stealth, better leave it to me." And then he was around the corner, keeping low and out of any line of sight that might be had from the narrow window in the door. Judging carefully, he edged to the side of the door and peeked in for the barest second, then headed back to Shinichi.

"Well?"

"Small room, bank of computers along the left wall. But there's another door right across from this one. Big observation window in the same wall. Couldn't see what they were observing, though."

"They?" Shinichi asked.

"Two people. They're not paying attention to much of anything other than what's on their screens. Just them and their computers in that first room – and I think one of them is our missing bartender."

Shinichi felt a frisson of excitement go through him and he made to charge around the corner – but Kaito caught him again.

"It makes _zero sense_ not to wait for backup!" he hissed. Shinichi scowled and pulled out his phone, tapping out a text to the pilots and thrusting the screen in Kaito's face when he was done. _Found bartender. End of first hall. Engaging_ , it said. Kaito had barely read it before Shinichi's finger brushed _send,_ and Shinichi was ducking around the corner and sprinting for the door. Kaito let out a strangled noise behind him and pursued, but Shinichi reached the door first and shoved it open.

 _You would have felt really silly if that had been_ locked _, dummy,_ Kaito thought, though he didn't pause one second before following Shinichi through.

The two people sitting at their computers in the small room rose abruptly when Shinichi crashed through the door – then froze, eyes shifting rapidly between Shinichi and Kaito. Neither was armed; Shinichi had the only obvious weapon in the room and the two slowly raised their empty hands. One of them was, indeed, the murderous bartender, though she had now donned a lab coat and scrubs. The other was a tall man with broad shoulders and rimless glasses who looked entirely out of place in his own lab coat and scrubs.

"Kaito, I think you probably have restraints somewhere on your person, don't you?" Shinichi asked, not taking his eyes off of the pair. Before Kaito could answer, though, they heard several sets of rapidly approaching footfalls. Kaito was about to slam the door when he saw it was the pilots, responding to Shinichi's text.

"See? You could have waited _half a minute_ ," Kaito scolded, standing aside to let the pilots come to an abrupt halt in the room. Wufei looked at Ikehara and the other scientist, then at the completely unharmed Kaito and Shinichi, and pulled out his set of handcuffs, muttering about lucky amateurs. Kaito silently handed over another pair and Wufei secured both scientists' hands behind their backs. They didn't so much as murmur a protest.

"What's in here?" Duo asked, heading over to the observation window. "It looks like a hospi— Heero!"

Shinichi smirked in triumph as Duo kicked the door in (unnecessarily – it hadn't been locked) and he, Quatre, and Trowa rushed into the room on the other side of the observation window. Shinichi saw Wufei's gaze linger on the door briefly and said, "Go ahead – get notes before they trash the scene. We'll keep an eye on these two."

Wufei nodded brusquely, pretending that that was why he'd rather be in the other room. He shoved the two prisoners into a sitting position against the wall and followed the other pilots. Shinichi's back was to the door to the other room, but he could hear the pilots first exclaiming, then a hasty, urgent discussion, a clatter... and then silence. He felt a twinge of doubt. Were they too late after all? He was about to turn and see for himself when the door to the hallway swung open from the outside.

Shinichi swung his gun to the doorway and Kaito moved to his side to keep both their prisoners and the newcomer in his line of vision. But the person who had opened the door looked the furthest possible thing from a threat. He looked like a security guard – one that had just run a marathon, and for whom opening the door had taken a herculean effort. He slumped against the doorjamb, breathing heavily, his face shadowed by his uniform cap. Then he looked up and met Shinichi's gaze, his eyes blazing blue under messy brown hair and Shinichi dropped his gun to his side.

"Tantei-kun..." the security guard with Kaito's face – and voice – said.

The Kaito standing by Shinichi's side took a step back and Shinichi whirled, dropping the gun and raising his watch. Kaito raised a hand to block the dart, but an anesthetic needle is an anesthetic needle no matter where it strikes, and a moment later he collapsed to the ground. Security guard-Kaito stumbled forward and more-or-less collapsed into Shinichi's arms, which came up in reflex to stop him from falling, and it took Shinichi a moment to realize that this was supposed to be a hug. Kaito's shoulders were shaking and Shinichi had to listen hard to determine that it was laughter and not sobs.

"How... the _hell_...did you know I was the real one?" Kaito asked, finally straightening and holding Shinichi at arm's length.

"I—"

"Is everything all right out here?" Quatre asked, poking his head out of the other room. His gaze went to the Kaito slumbering peacefully on the floor, to the Kaito dressed as a security guard clutching Shinichi, to Shinichi's face, to the two scientists still sitting quietly on the floor watching the whole thing with decidedly bewildered looks on their faces. "Oh," Quatre said, unruffled. "That explains it. Welcome back, Kaito. If you two will swap with Trowa for a sec, there's something you should see."

Kaito and Shinichi exchanged a look. Kaito's said that he still wanted an answer and Shinichi's said that he had questions of his own, but both also said _later_. They followed Quatre into the other room as Trowa took up guard over the three prisoners.

Heero was, indeed, in this room. He was lying on something that looked like a cross between an examining table and a hospital bed and Duo was trying to stop him from sitting up. Shinichi noted the open restraints dangling from the edges of the table and the IV of clear, unidentified liquid that had been knocked to the floor. Wufei was in the corner speaking quietly but urgently into his cell phone. Next to the hospital table was... something else.

It looked something like a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, but smaller, as though it had been perfectly fitted for its unconscious occupant, who was clearly visible through the glass: a young man, about five foot eight, brown hair falling in a spray across his forehead.

Shinichi felt a sudden vertigo and Quatre, who had been watching him intently, moved to steady him. But Kaito was already there with a hand on his shoulder and a low murmur in his ear to ground him. Shinichi took a deep breath and forced himself to look at... himself.

"Geez, you could have _warned_ him," Duo said.

"And what would I have said?" Quatre asked, a little exasperated. "We have no idea what this is."

"I think I do," Shinichi said faintly. He looked and, yes, there were a few thin tubes on the ground with the IV – from the marks along Heero's arms, it looked as though Duo had probably just ripped them out as soon as he was close enough. Or maybe Heero had after he started to wake up. The other end of the tubes connected to the end of the chamber via a bulky apparatus whose specific function Shinichi couldn't guess, but in general... well, the person lying in the chamber also had some IV-type tubes stuck in his arms that seemed to be feeding in something that the chamber was producing. A small monitor on the side of the chamber showed a steady but slow heartbeat. "This is... me."

Kaito snorted. "Or a clone, or someone who's had plastic surgery. Or me, for that matter."

"No," Shinichi said slowly. He nodded to the other room, where the other Kaito lay still unconscious. "You're out there."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT CONAN'S HINT!  
> A puzzle or riddle would be much more straightforward.


	17. In Which the Readers Go Back in Time (But the Characters Don't)

_Roughly Two Days Ago_

 

Kaito clambered up the fire escape in the alley outside the Green Leaf Café, not really thinking that the would-be poisoner had taken this route, but that he would be better able to assist with a bird’s-eye view. Shinichi and Quatre ran off in one direction, Duo and Trowa in the other, and then it was just Kaito and the rooftops.

Or… it should have been. Almost immediately he sensed someone behind him.

"Oh, so you did come up here after all," he said cheerfully, turning with a bright, disarming smile already on his face. But there was no one there. He frowned, about to turn back to the search when a hand darted out from behind him and pressed a cloth over his nose and mouth. An arm like iron wrapped around his waist.

He immediately held his breath and jabbed an elbow back to remove the assailant. It connected, but had no effect other than to cause whoever it was to exhale a little harshly. Kaito tried for the insole next, but the person dragged him backward, putting him off balance. Kaito went limp, thinking to fool the attacker into believing whatever was on the cloth had worked, but the bastard only tightened his arm and pressed the cloth and Kaito was out of options. He breathed in.

 

When Kaito woke up he was completely naked and completely in the dark. His hands were cuffed behind his back, he had no idea how much time had passed, and the concrete floor he was lying on was rather cold. He groaned and curled up a little, hoping signs of life would bring a guard or something to check on him. Clearly someone had a healthy respect for his abilities – hence the nakedness – and it’d be much easier to lift something to work with off of someone else than any alternative.

No one was forthcoming, however. Kaito revised his consideration of his captors’ respect for his abilities from ‘healthy’ to ‘unfair,’ wasted another moment considering growing a braid like Duo’s to hide things in, then rocked into a sitting position with a sigh. In moments his hands were in front of him – still cuffed, but at least he had options now. Dislocating one’s thumbs was unpleasant, but…

Wait. He _wasn’t_ completely in the dark. There was something… Kaito blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted. Yes, there was a little red LED off to the side, like what you’d see on the front of a TV that was turned off. It wasn’t nearly enough light to see by, but it was _something_. Kaito got to his feet, a little unsteady, and padded over to the light, feet curling in an attempt to have as little of his skin touch the cold floor as possible.

Distance was hard to judge with only one point of reference, but it turned out the light was only a few steps away. Kaito ran a thumb over it, his other hand dangling from the cuffs. It seemed to be a button, so he pushed it.

Light burst in front of him and he squeezed his eyes shut far too late. Sparkles danced in his vision as he stood frozen, straining for any sort of sound that might indicate whoever was holding him prisoner was coming to investigate whatever he’d just done.

The light-blindness passed in a few moments, though, and no one came. As Kaito’s vision cleared he could see that what he had pressed was, in fact, the power button on a small monitor mounted to the wall at about chest height. The monitor was now glowing softly, illuminating the dismal cube of a room, no more than eight feet by eight and entirely concrete. The glow from the screen barely reached the corners, but it did illuminate the room’s most salient aspect: a door. As Kaito faced the screen, it was in the wall to the left. Kaito looked back down at the monitor speculatively and noticed that there was a post-it note stuck to it.

Incredulous, he snatched it off and held it close to the monitor to read.

 _There will be a test,_ it said. Kaito resisted the urge to crumple it up and fling it to the ground. Instead he stuck it back on the edge of the monitor – it might yet contain a clue – and then finally looked at the screen itself.

His initial thought had been that this was a puzzle door, and that the computer held the key to opening it. Far stranger things had happened to him. But the screen showed nothing but a few folder icons, labeled with things like _Big Picture, Suggested Investments, The War, The Portal._ Kaito’s finger (his other hand still being dragged along by the cuffs) hovered over the folder called _The Portal_ for a few moments. Surely that was a trap of some kind. Surely there wasn’t just… information about a portal to the past sitting here on a computer in his cell. He let his hands drop and looked over at the door accusingly. A puzzle or riddle would be much more straightforward.

He abandoned the screen for the moment, then, to take a closer look at the door. If it was one of the hundreds of locking mechanisms he was familiar with… but of course, it wasn’t. The door was a solid slab of steel and appeared to be the kind that would slide into the wall to open, so there weren’t even any hinges to tamper with.

Kaito ran his hands over the featureless surface, finding it just as chilly as the floor. He shivered a little. The cold wasn’t at dangerous levels, but he certainly wasn’t _comfortable_. Sleeping on the concrete floor in the cold had left him achy; he was also rather hungry and was starting to get distracted by longing for the cup of hot chocolate he’d never gotten to enjoy at the café.

He let out a little huff of impatience with himself and trudged back over to the computer, stared at it for a few moments longer, then gave the portal folder a jab.

Nothing happened. At least, nothing that one would not expect to happen when opening a folder on a computer. The contents were displayed: one text file and… quite a few blueprints. Kaito stared, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him. Then he began reading.

 

Kaito was an engineer. Not all magicians were, but if you wanted to do things like walk on air, vanish in one place and reappear instantly in another, make sure all your toys were completely untraceable, and consistently thwart any security system you might encounter, you had to know a thing or two. He memorized the blueprint. It helped that it came with handy bullet-point instructions as to operation, though he couldn’t help but wonder why, if whoever was holding him was so bent on being helpful, they hadn’t just included a _printer_ …

Reading the file did not trigger anything that might indicate escape, or an imminent ‘test’. The contents of the other folders were… interesting… but not sufficiently so that Kato was happy to stand around naked, cold, hungry, and handcuffed reading them. He wandered back to the door after very briefly skimming their contents, but had no more luck than the first time, then went back to glare at the post-it. If this was the test, maybe it was designed for failure.

He examined the walls and floor, too, but in the bad light he was more than willing to admit he might be missing something. This theory bore out when, just as he was beginning to consider going mad, a faint hiss heralded the arrival of a rapidly-spreading cloud of pink gas.

Kaito immediately noted where the gas was originating from – a tiny nozzle in the wall he hadn’t seen in the shadows – and then promptly passed out.

 

He woke up – again with no notion of how long he’d been out, which was becoming annoying – to find a Styrofoam tray right in front of his nose. It contained one innocent-looking bottle of water, one nefarious-looking peanut butter sandwich, and one stemless red apple that looked like it was maybe on the fence about a life of crime. He sighed, stretching out muscles that were now stiff all over again, and opened the bottle of water. It had been sealed, and anyway, if they wanted to drug or poison him, he reasoned, they had a much more efficient means with that convenient little gas pipe.

Or at least, they _had_. Kato jammed the peanut butter sandwich into the opening with a certain amount of vindictive glee. Ideally there would be no cameras watching him, but even if there were, there was nothing they could do about it without sending someone in to fix it. And as soon as he was within arm’s reach of a person, he was free.

Kaito ate the apple slowly, hoping his strangely benevolent captor believed in regular meals. Then, since there was nothing else to do for the moment, he went back to the computer and began reading the files more carefully. After all, there would be a test.

 

He had time to read every file thoroughly. When he saw the contents of some of the folders he told himself he wouldn’t, but boredom and curiosity won out. When he was sure he had read everything and committed the important bits to memory, he smashed the handcuffs into the monitor until it broke and he ended up with a piece of plastic from the edge of the screen skinny enough to work the lock on the cuffs.

They really must _not_ be watching him, he thought, backing away from the debris from the broken monitor so he wouldn't step on it in the dark. Strange. Why go to all the trouble to abduct him and hold him prisoner but not do something as simple as install a security camera in the cell? Perhaps whoever he was dealing with was short staffed.

Whatever the case, Kaito had plenty of time to think about it. There was now nothing to do but wait. Working by feel, he investigated the wall where the screen had been mounted, thinking that if he could gain access to the wiring he might short out the door, but that proved fruitless. He paced the room a few times, thinking and twirling the handcuffs around one finger trying to come up with other, quicker ways to get out than his current plan. Then, as his stomach gave a sulky little rumble, he figured he had better conserve his energy and sat down near the door and daydreamed about pants.

He was getting dangerously close to nodding off when he heard it again: the hiss that had preceded the cloud of sleeping gas last time they had fed him. Compared to how it had sounded the last time it had activated, Kaito could tell his sticky mess of peanut butter and bread was holding. Sandwiches not being a particularly efficient sealant, however, he assumed some gas would still seep through. He took a deep breath before the air could become too poisoned and slumped over, back to the door so that whoever came in wouldn't see that his hands were free.

Of course, they took their time coming in. Naturally, they'd want to make sure the gas had done its work. Kaito was actually forced to take a few shallow breaths before he heard the door slide open and it took quite a lot of willpower not to just jump up and _bolt._ But then whoever entered was kind enough to reach down and check his pulse and he had his chance.

The handcuffs snapped satisfyingly into place around the unknown person's wrist. Kaito grabbed the forearm and hauled them over himself to the floor, kicked them over onto their stomach, and locked the other wrist into place before the poor soul even knew what was happening. Kaito planted a knee in the woman's back – because he could see now it was a woman, rather tall and solidly built and dressed in clothes that would not fit him particularly well, dammit – and smiled pleasantly down at her as she tried to crane her neck around to see him by the light of the small electric lantern she'd brought in.

"Don't hurt me," she gasped out.

"What do you take me for?" Kaito muttered. He was dismayed to find himself feeling slightly out of breath and a little dizzy. Well, he'd operated under worse conditions. "Don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me where I am, who abducted me, why they did it, and... I don't know, anything else you can think of?" he asked pleasantly while rifling through all of her pockets. He came up with a keycard, a piece of gum, and a pen. Her clothes looked like standard security-guard wear, but he couldn't find a company logo anywhere on them. No weapon, either.

The woman laughed shortly. "Wish I could. You probably know more than me. I'm just a contractor, man. Make any enemies lately?"

Kaito _hmph_ 'd, doubting the veracity of that response, but he had more urgent concerns. "Oh well, then. Please pardon the intrusion, miss."

 

Kaito emerged seconds later dressed in the woman's too-large clothes. He'd left her the shoes because he'd rather be able to run quickly than have warm feet, and it wasn't like he would blend in that much in the ill-fitting uniform anyway.

He used the keycard to shut the door on the woman's protests, then leaned against the wall outside the cell and had a tiny bout of hyperventilation while he ate the sandwich she'd brought in about two bites. Not a great combination of activities, but he was in a hurry and did not have time to freak out about being trapped when he'd already escaped.

The room he was in now was just as nondescript as the cell, but at least it had lights. It was empty, with another sliding door on the other side. His pilfered key card opened it easily and gave Kaito access to what looked like an improvised break room: small round table with a coffee pot, two chairs, security guard.

The security guard's eyes widened when he saw Kaito, who grinned, waved, and ducked back into the room he'd just come from. The security guard – this one male and, Kaito was delighted to note, just his size – let out a strangled yell and lunged out of his chair after Kaito, which was just silly. Really, he deserved what happened next, which was that Kaito tripped him and stripped him faster than you could say "costume change". This guard was carrying his own set of handcuffs, which Kaito used to secure him, and a radio.

Now armed with a means of eavesdropping on the other side and a pair of shoes that fit pretty well, actually, Kaito settled the uniform cap a little more securely on his head and ventured forth into what turned out to be an extensive underground compound.

Dodging the rest of the security force was relatively easy: there weren't many of them and they were very kindly announcing their positions at regular intervals over the radio. They knew something was wrong though, as neither of the guards who were supposed to be watching Kaito's cell checked in. Kaito moved quickly, ducking into rooms and sprinting down hallways whenever he heard someone coming. There was no ceiling access, or air vents large enough to crawl into, and he hadn't done the research necessary to confidently pretend to be just another security guard.

When he found the stairwell he almost fainted in relief. He seemed to be at the bottom of it: the only way to go was up, and that suited him just fine. He could do with a rooftop right about now.

Kaito started up the stairs at a steady pace. The sign at the bottom level had said B14, so he had a ways to go. But as he went higher – B13, B12 – he found himself picking up speed until he was flat-out running up the stairs just because he could, goaded on by the thought of nothing but stars above him. B11 and B10 rushed by without him meeting anyone. At B9 he hastily hid behind the door as it swung open and a security guard rushed down the stairs. Then he was moving again.

He made it all the way to the very top without stopping, but the very top, it turned out, was B1. Kaito stared at the door in disbelief while trying to get his breath after running up fourteen flights of stairs. What kind of stupid, evil, not-to-code secret compound...

He eased the door open, frustrated that he was going to have to find another way out. Luckily the short hallway beyond the door was clear. There was an elevator across from the stairwell, and just to the right a door with a window in it and light spilling out that he planned to avoid.

At least, he planned to avoid it until he heard Duo's muffled shout of "Heero!" from behind it, followed by the distinct sound of a door being kicked in. Kaito was running for the door before he could even think about how out of breath he was or how much his legs hurt. The door swung open at his touch and he slumped against the doorframe, wanting nothing more than to collapse right there. That could wait, though, because while he was thrilled to finally set eyes on Shinichi (even if he was pointing a gun at him), he was less thrilled to find some asshole wearing his face at Shinichi's side.

"Tantei-kun..." Kaito breathed, trying to figure out what the hell he was going to say to convince Shinichi that he was the real one. Then, miracle of miracles, Shinichi turned and shot the imposter with an anesthetic dart. Kaito about melted into a puddle right then, and not just from exhaustion. Instead he stumbled forward, laughing, meaning to take Shinichi by the shoulders. He ended up more falling into his arms, and that was okay because Shinichi's arms reflexively tightened around him to keep him from falling and finally, he was safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it doesn't explain EVERYTHING, but we're getting closer. Also, congratulations, you made it through my least favorite chapter! Always annoying dealing with a character in isolation...
> 
> NEXT CONAN'S HINT!  
> "Best deduction ever."


	18. In Which Shinichi Is Very Smooth and then Not Smooth at All

Shinichi and Kaito were back in the outer observation room in the secret base under the Blue Rocket with the two captive scientists and the unconscious Kaito. The Preventers had swarmed down into the complex on Wufei's word and were rounding up the security guards the not-unconscious Kaito had mentioned when telling Shinichi what had happened to him. There was also a medical team examining Shinichi. The other Shinichi. Future Shinichi? This was going to get confusing, Kaito thought as he went through the pockets of his own counterpart with one eye on Shinichi. His Shinichi. Yes, that would do.

His Shinichi kept glancing back at the hospital room with a very troubled expression.

"Tantei-kun," Kaito said, retrieving a small collection of smoke bombs from other-Kaito's person. He'd already recovered the card gun and his cell phone. "You were going to tell me how you knew I was... me."

Shinichi had filled him in on what he'd missed, though he'd refused to explain how he'd known Kaito was Kaito until Kaito shared what had happened to him over the past few days. Kaito had told it quickly, not particularly wanting to relive the experience and curious to hear how well he – the other he – had played himself. His past self. Or whatever.

"I actually didn't figure it out right away," Shinichi said, tearing his eyes from the observation window. He even sounded a little apologetic. Kaito shrugged.

"Well, if it really is me, it couldn't be helped," he said with a grin.

"Yeah... you were acting strange though. Or, he was," Shinichi said. "Just little things. But what really started me thinking that something was seriously wrong was the murder at the Blue Rocket."

Kaito frowned, bending over his other self to do one last sweep for hidden toys until he could get his poker face in order. That murder disturbed him, for several reasons.

"He panicked when he thought I was picking up the glass that had been tainted with monkshood," Shinichi went on, oblivious. "Only, at that point he shouldn't have had any idea that the glass was dangerous to pick up. Unless he recognized the same symptoms I did. But if he had – or, as I thought, if _you_ had – why wouldn't you say anything? Then when I was figuring out that Heero was actually being held here, he kept trying to distract me, slow me down. If it was you, you'd have been on the same page as me – or a page ahead, even," Shinichi said generously. Kaito gave him a little bow from the floor. "And then when I realized how Ikehara must have evaded us at the Blue Rocket... there's no way she could have gotten into the freezer and through the trap door before Kaito – other-Kaito – ran through the kitchen. He _had_ to have seen her... but there was still the fact that he wasn't wearing a mask. He looks just like you. Then when you showed up here..." Shinichi sighed and leaned back in the chair, scrubbing at his face with shaking hands.

"Hey," Kaito said, at his side in a moment and taking those hands in his own. "Deep breaths."

"Remember when I asked you if you wanted to live forever?"

"Yeah..." Kaito said.

"I wonder what changed. What will change."

Kaito's eyes darted to the door to the hospital room, where Preventers medical was wheeling out the still-unconscious form of Shinichi. Other-Shinichi. Then he looked down at the slumbering other-Kaito. "We could always ask."

Shinichi shuddered. "I don't think I want to know."

Kaito thought about all the things he _did_ know now, the files he'd read. He hadn't shared their contents with Shinichi when recounting his little adventure – just the part about the blueprints for the portal. He tried not to dwell on how other-Shinichi looked barely older than his Shinichi. A few years, tops. Other-Kaito, too – he was wearing very light makeup, unnoticeable to the untrained eye, to conceal the fact that he was just a few years older than Kaito was; the kind of changes that would be imperceptible to someone who had seen you go through them gradually, but that would definitely be noticeable if they happened all at once.

At any rate, watching the Preventers remove other-Shinichi, and looking down at _his_ Shinichi, who didn't seem to realize he was still holding his hands, Kaito had a pretty good idea of what might have motivated... himself. Then a horrible thought occurred to him.

"Shinichi... he didn't—"

Shinichi looked up at the tone of alarm in Kaito's voice, then stood abruptly when he realized what Kaito was asking. "No! Nothing like... um." He flushed. "In fact, he went out of his way _not_ to touch me. I thought that was kind of strange, actually."

Kaito shook his head. "Shinichi..." He could think of a million things he wanted to say (things like: _If I ever stop touching you, you don't have to wait for a murder to know something's wrong_ ). But saying them over his unconscious future self felt just a little...off. He could wait. Especially since Wufei was returning with the restraints Kaito had recommended for containing other-Kaito, and Quatre was poking his head out of the hospital room with a delighted look on his face that probably had a lot to do with the fact that he'd seen Kaito and Shinichi holding hands.

"Wait," Shinichi said, dropping Kaito's hands suddenly. "Shino Yamada."

"What?" Kaito asked.

"Why was she arrested?"

"Attempted murder," Wufei said, cuffing other-Kaito's hands behind his back. Kaito looked away. It was just _wrong_. "She had actually come to the bar planning to threaten her husband to get him to sign the divorce papers, and to kill him if he refused. The Preventers found the gun in a toilet when they did a more thorough search. It was definitely not Mr. Yamada's night."

Shinichi gave other-Kaito a lingering look, and Kaito could practically see the wheels turning in his head. He felt sick – exhausted, and nervous, and confused – and wanted badly just to be alone with Shinichi so he could find out just what he was thinking about Kaito – about him – and that murder.

"Heero, you shouldn't be – Duo, why are you helping him?!" came Quatre's plaintive cry. Heero had an arm across Duo's shoulders and Duo was more-or-less carrying him out of the hospital room. "There's an ambulance—"

"Quatre," Heero said, fixing him with a steady, clear-headed stare. "If you put me in an ambulance, I swear I will steal it and drive it off a pier somewhere."

Quatre put up his hands in surrender. "Seems you're feeling just fine then," he said fondly.

"Yeah, we'll see how that holds up when we get to the ladder," Duo muttered. Then he looked around. "Well, seems like everything is under control here. What say we get out of this hole and never look back?"

 

_Later that evening_

 

The general consensus was that it was much too late, much too much had happened, and everything could be dealt with in the morning.

 

Quatre and Trowa went back to Quatre's place.

 

Wufei oversaw the securing of the prisoners and began trying to make sense of everything that was happening by writing it up in a formal report. He fell asleep in his office, but it wasn't the first time. Une made sure he had a blanket, and took his elbow off the spacebar so he wouldn't panic when he woke up, thinking his entire report was gone.

 

Heero and Duo did go back to Preventers headquarters, but didn't go anywhere near medical. Duo raided the kitchens and they found spare sleeping quarters, in which Duo proceeded to make sure Heero replaced any fluids lost during whatever wacky procedure he'd been through, and Heero, realizing Duo hadn't eaten in some time, offered him a one-to-one trade as far as consumables went: he'd eat or drink whatever Duo wanted as long as Duo did as well. Duo fell asleep over a pop-tart and Heero poked him awake, prodded him into the bunk, and then laid on top of him to make him stay there. From Duo's perspective, this had the added bonus of making Heero stay in bed too, so he didn't object and they both actually ended up getting enough sleep that night.

 

Kaito and Shinichi returned to their quarters at the Preventers base. They moved around each other carefully, getting ready for bed in silence. Shinichi finished first and sat on the edge of the bottom bunk, eyes tracking Kaito around the room as he checked to see what little things had been moved or messed with by his other self while he was gone. When he was finally settled and ready for bed, he went to the ladder leading to the top bunk instead of simply vanishing and reappearing there. He paused, one hand on the ladder, looking down at Shinichi where he sat.

"Are you worried?" Kaito asked abruptly.

Shinichi straightened. "I – about what?" he asked, a little surprised.

"About yourself."

Shinichi blinked. Of all the things he was worried about, he'd barely thought about that. "No," he decided. "Not really."

"You're in a coma."

"Well, I could use the sleep."

Kaito didn't want to smile at that, but he couldn't help it. "What _are_ you worried about then?"

"Right now? I'm worried about leaving the other Kaito alone until morning."

Kaito snorted. "Probably wise. I thought about giving them instructions for a cell that would hold me, but... if that's me from the future then he already knows... ugh!" Kaito dropped to sit on the floor, digging the heels of his hands into his forehead. "I hate this! And I hate him. Which is really confusing!"

"I believe in you." It was quiet, the statement calm, though Shinichi's face was burning as he said it.

"What?" Kaito wasn't sure he'd heard right.

"Look," Shinichi said, staring determinedly at the floor. "If there's one thing KID has taught me – that you've taught me – it's that things aren't always what they seem. You're not a murderer. I don't think you can ever be. I trust you, Kaito. Whatever's going on here, with all this..." He gestured to the century at large. "We'll figure it out."

"Shinichi..." Kaito's eyes were large and liquid, and then he surged to his knees in front of Shinichi, leaned in – and hesitated.

"Oh," Shinichi said, eyes widening. He reached out, hand on the back of Kaito's neck, and pulled him the rest of the way forward. Kaito let out a little sigh of contentment just as their lips met.

"Best deduction ever," Kaito murmured against Shinichi's mouth, and Shinichi laughed and the kiss was well and truly broken.

"You can thank your future self," Shinichi said. Kaito's face went still and Shinichi hurried to explain. "I mean, he didn't say anything, it's just – we were in this exact position, and he leaned in, and I had no idea what he was doing but then he suddenly backed off so fast he hit his head... and I just now realized what he was about to do that time, since it was you this time, and... well, I didn't want to let you get away."

Kaito was staring at him. "Shinichi. You two were…and he was leaning in like this... and you didn't realize what he had in mind?"

"Well, it's a good thing I didn't!" Shinichi said. "I mean, if we had – if he had – I mean, I would have had our first kiss and you wouldn't have yet. That would just be confusing."

Kaito's eyes widened. Then a little giggle escaped, and next thing he had fallen over cackling. "Well thank goodness we avoided _that_ ," he gasped, well aware that he was edging on hysterics. "Wouldn't want things to be _confusing_ between us!"

"Shut up. Stupid thief," Shinichi muttered, though he was smiling.

"Okay, okay. Sorry. Hey – did you say _first_ kiss? Implying that there will be more?" Kaito asked from the floor.

"Uh... I thought... well, yeah?" If Shinichi had been blushing before he was practically incandescent now. "I mean, if you wanted. And not just – that. But." Shinichi took a deep breath and told his brain to get its damn act together. "I like you."

"You don't know me."

"Oh?" Shinichi's eyes sharpened in challenge. "I know you care about the safety of others more than your own. I know you're a genius when it comes to engineering and chemistry, and when it comes to people. I know you did something to piss off the Organization, which also indicates the quality of your character."

"So you know KID," Kaito said with a cocked eyebrow.

"I know the parts of you that you've put into KID. I know that KID isn't all of you... but I'd say it's a pretty good start." Shinichi shrugged. "But if you're not interested, that's fine." He flopped down on the bed and rolled over, his back to the room. The indignant squeak from behind him made him grin. Then the lights went out. He felt the mattress give, a quick warmth against his back, a breath of air across his ear.

"Oh, I am definitely interested." Then a quick peck against his cheek and Kaito was gone, presumably to the top bunk. Shinichi rolled over onto his back and felt his pulse thud in his ears. This was going to be interesting. He hoped his heart could take dating the Kaito KID – and Kuroba Kaito.

 

_Still later..._

 

It took Shinichi a while to fall asleep, which Kaito supposed he should feel a bit flattered by. But he had places to be that Shinichi would be happier not knowing about. He waited impatiently for the detective's breathing to deepen and slow and then was out of his bunk and out of the room in a flash.

The Preventers detainment facilities were actually just underneath headquarters, and were disturbingly easy to get into. A judicious dose of sleeping gas and the application of a slightly-tweaked version of Duo's camera-killer and no one but Kaito would know he had been there. And he was _pretty_ sure he wasn't going to tell anyone.

Other-Kaito was sitting on his cot, leaning against the wall of his cell with his legs stretched out in front of him. "Congratulations," he said when Kaito appeared in the hallway on the other side of the bars. The cell itself was incredibly ordinary, with standard-issue bars, cot, sink... Kaito could see at least two ways to get out of it already. He narrowed his eyes at his counterpart.

"For what?" he asked.

"If I recall correctly, you've just come from a very successful little chat with our detective. You're welcome."

Kaito's fist clenched.

"And now you're thinking that you don't owe me anything, that you would have gotten Shinichi eventually even without this whole mess... but you wouldn't, because this "whole mess" was always going to happen. You two are destined."

"I don't believe in destiny."

"Not yet."

Kaito ignored this. "What I don't understand," he said, leaning against the wall and trying to regain his composure. "Is how you could go through with all of this. How you could become a _murderer_ , become the Organization, when you _knew_ how it was all going to end!"

"Tch. The Clubs," other-Kaito said dismissively. "Just a useful tool. I'm done with them now; they'll all be arrested soon. I _did_ try to leave hints, you know." A playing card appeared between his fingers and he winged it through the air, through the bars at Kaito. Kaito caught it easily, wondering how Preventers security could be so lax as to allow him to carry anything into this cell – and also wondering how he himself had missed it. Then he looked at the card. It had nothing but the Kuroba clover printed right in the middle of it. "The one on the note I left at the diamond heist was a little sloppy. They thought it was a club. Makes sense since I left it on a playing card, I guess. Everyone had forgotten about the Kaito KID by that point," other-Kaito said with a wry half-grin.

"And then you murdered the person who identified it as being a symbol of your organization. The one whose body turned up in Kuala Lumpur," Kaito said scathingly.

Other-Kaito frowned. "Not me. One of my factors, thinking to act on my behalf. They were punished. Severely."

Kaito did not like the look in his eye at all. "But now I know that some factor of yours... of mine... is going to do that. I can prevent it."

Other-Kaito shrugged with one shoulder. "You can try."

"Did you?"

Other-Kaito just looked at him steadily. Kaito scowled, turned the playing card over his fingers a few times, and vanished it. "What about Mr. Yamada, then? You can't tell me Ikehara wasn't acting on your orders. You deliberately set up that murder to stall Shinichi."

"He was dead anyway," other-Kaito said casually. "His wife planned to murder him that night, and even if she didn't succeed I think you'll find he had what would soon become a fatal lung disease, if you look at his medical records."

Kaito's hands shook. "That doesn't make it okay!"

Other-Kaito got to his feet and came to the bars, staring intently at Kaito. "Don't forget that you'll make the same choices I did," he said. "And you'll do it precisely _because_ you know how it's all going to end."

"I won't," Kaito said, and he realized he had taken two steps closer to the bars, his fists clenched at his sides. The poker face was long gone. He didn't care. "There's nothing that could—"

"Isn't there?" other-Kaito asked.

"You don't even know if it _worked_ ," Kaito hissed. "Your Shinichi is still comatose in the hospital. Whatever you were trying to do, it might all have been for nothing."

Other-Kaito's arms snaked out and grabbed Kaito by the front of his shirt, pulling him right up to the bars. Kaito immediately tried to vanish out of his grasp, but of course he knew all of his tricks. He couldn't get away. "It worked," other-Kaito said, his voice low and intense. "You'll find out tomorrow. And when the time comes, when Shinichi's life is in danger in a few years—"

"Don't! I don't want to hear this," Kaito said, struggling to get away.

"Quiet! You have to know. In a few years, you'll know it's time. You'll have Pandora, and Shinichi will be _dying_ , shot right in front of you the moment you find it."

"Stop it!" Kaito clawed at his other self's wrists, but other-Kaito only shook him.

"The stone can save him, but Shinichi is different. You know he is. It won't go quite right. But don't worry, it'll work just fine on you..."

Kaito finally wrenched himself free with a cry and fell to the ground, where he sat breathing heavily for a few moments. Then he glared up at the other Kaito. "Shinichi wouldn't want that," he growled.

"But _you_ do," other-Kaito said, smiling down at him. "Or you wouldn't have read those files I left you so carefully."

Kaito paled. "I didn't know..."

"You do now. That's the whole point. Now you _know_ and everything will happen just as it must. Soon he'll wake up and it will finally, _finally_ be over!" Other-Kaito laughed, more than a little manic. Kaito got to his feet, clapped his hands over his ears, and _ran._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. Well! What an uplifting fic this is. Nearing the end here - one more chapter of story proper, plus the epilogue and "post-credits" scene (in the grand tradition of Detective Conan). Thanks for sticking with me so far!
> 
> NEXT CONAN'S HINT:  
> "Wow, that's gross."


	19. In Which Kaito and Shinichi Plan Their Future

"Kaito, can you hand me the splicer? ...Kaito?"

"Hm? Sorry, what?"

"Splicer?"

"Oh, right." Kaito handed the splicer to Wufei, who gave him a long, hard look before going back to the part of the portal he was working on. Kaito blinked. He'd been staring at the same knot of wiring for at least five minutes. And now Shinichi was staring at _him_. He smiled cheerfully at him, fixed the short, and moved on.

Thanks to the blueprint Kaito had studied, they now knew exactly how to fix the portal. Une had called all of her engineers off of it and left it to the Gundam pilots, Kaito, and Shinichi. She had suddenly decided that perhaps the fewer people who knew exactly how it worked, the better, and had stated her intention to destroy it as soon as Kaito and Shinichi were sent home. There were no arguments.

Heero was more or less back in peak health. He'd only been a little dehydrated and a little anemic. Duo was still keeping an eye on his fluid intake, but a night of rest and recovery seemed to have done its job and now both of them were at the portal helping out.

"Oh good, you're still working on it," Quatre said, appearing in the doorway to the portal room. Trowa was just behind him. Kaito straightened immediately.

"Any word on—"

"He's fine," Quatre said. He and Trowa had been at the hospital keeping an eye on the other Shinichi just in case. "In fact... it seems like he's actually on the mend," Quatre said happily. "We've moved him to a more secure location, and we expect he'll wake up any day now."

There were general murmurs of approval at that, though Kaito's feelings were mixed. It looked like his future self was right about this, at least. Great.

"A more secure location than a Preventers hospital?" Duo asked. "Do you mean—"

"Ah, don't tell me!" Kaito exclaimed. Everyone turned to look at him, startled. "What? I'm apparently going to turn into a slightly crazy murderer in the future... maybe it's better I don't know some things?" He had meant it to come out light and self-mocking. Mostly it just sounded bitter.

"Hey that reminds me," Duo said, breaking the silence before it could grow awkward. "You know what doesn't make sense?"

"The fact that you haven't managed to set your hair on fire yet?" Wufei asked, snatching a small blow-torch out of Duo's hand before he could scratch his head with the nozzle.

"What? It wasn't _on_ ," Duo protested. Wufei rolled his eyes. "No, I mean about the Kaito from our time. He was trying to slow down Shinichi when he figured out where Heero was. The whole murder was meant to send him off on a wild goose chase. Why bother with all of that when he already knew Shinichi was going to find his secret hideout?"

"He didn't know how long it would take," Kaito said. "Because I don't know how long I was out after he kidnapped me. No idea how long I was down in that cell – and no, _don't_ tell me. The less he knows, the better. I could probably work out a pretty close guess, but obviously it won't be accurate. He must have thought he needed more time to do... whatever he was doing to his Shinichi," Kaito said. Actually, he knew that was exactly the case. It had been in a file marked _The Cure_ , detailing how to theoretically wake up someone who had been put into an eternal sleep by Pandora using the blood of a genetically enhanced super-soldier. Jesus. They should just arrest him right now.

Duo just muttered something about time travel being awful, then Quatre and Trowa asked where they could help and soon all seven of them were working away on different parts of the machine, wondering that one stray gunshot could have done so much damage.

"Hey," Shinichi said quietly, putting a hand on Kaito's shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"Of course I am," Kaito said, not looking up from the wire covering he was removing. Shinichi frowned and opened his mouth to point out that that was obviously not true when Kaito interrupted him. "Look. Can we just... focus on getting home?" Getting home was simple. It was an attainable goal. And once they were there, technically none of this would have happened yet, and maybe he'd be able to think about it more clearly.

"...sure," Shinichi said. Kaito smiled at him.

"Great. Then go see if the computer will boot up now. I think I've got it right this time."

 

He had. With that, and a few replaced circuits and repaired physical damage, the portal hummed back into life. The seven of them stood back to admire their handiwork for a few moments. Then,

"Well, I guess this is our stop," Kaito said. He picked up the backpack he'd brought with him from the past. They'd already agreed that it probably wasn't a good idea to bring anything from the future back with them, so they were wearing the clothes they'd arrived in as well.

"Hang on," Quatre said. "Now that it's working, are you sure you don't want to stick around a little longer? See the other Shinichi when he wakes up?"

"No!" Kaito blurted. Then he covered his mouth, realizing he'd spoken for both himself and Shinichi. But Shinichi was just shaking his head, a bemused smile on his face.

"Kaito's right. That's... not something I need to do. Besides, now that we know it's possible, we've got an Organization to take down."

Kaito perked up. He'd actually forgotten. Now that they knew that the Clubs actually _weren't_ their Organization, there was no reason they couldn't take them out in the present – so it turned out his original motivation for dragging Shinichi through the portal had actually borne fruit. That was a win he needed right now.

"Good luck," Trowa said simply. The other pilots echoed the sentiment, they all shook hands (Quatre followed his up with a hug that encompassed both of them) and then there was nothing left to do or say. It was time. They faced the portal.

Then, before anyone could have any second thoughts or panic, Kaito grabbed Shinichi's hand and leapt forward. "Hang on tight, tantei-kun!"

Those few moments of awful compression...blackness that lasted just long enough that they wondered whether the portal really was fixed after all...a brief moment of weightlessness and _oh, crap what if the diamond is several hundred feet in the air again??_... and then they were through.

They landed in a heap in Agasa's observatory.

And then alarms began going off.

"Ow! What the hell?" Shinichi wondered, sticking his fingers in his ears. Kaito winced and did the same, but in moments the alarms were shut off as Haibara and Agasa burst into the lab.

"You're back!" Agasa exclaimed.

"You're alive," Haibara said. Both sounded rather surprised.

"Uh... how long were we gone?" Shinichi asked, accepting Kaito's hand up.

"Four days," Haibara said. "We set up the security system to let us know if anything came through."

"Four days," Shinichi repeated, hand going to his chin. "A one-to-one lapse...?"

"Hey guys!" Duo's voice said suddenly from behind them. They all let out varied sounds of startledness and turned to where the portal presumably was. Duo's head was floating in midair. "Oh good, you made it. Great. Just checking. We're gonna destroy this sucker now – just wanted to make sure you didn't get scrambled or something."

"We're fine," Kaito said, going around behind to peer curiously at Duo's severed neck. "Wow, that's gross."

"Ha ha, hilarious," Duo said dryly. "Okay, they're pulling me back now. Bye!" He vanished into the future. They all stared at the spot for a few more moments, wondering if they would be able to tell when the portal was destroyed, but nothing happened.

"So," Agasa said, looking from Kaito to Shinichi. "What happened?"

"Uh... it's a long story," Shinichi said. "Let's head downstairs to go over it."

"Good, I can examine you while you talk," Haibara said, leading the way. Agasa followed, as did Shinichi with a little shake of his head. He turned to tell Kaito to shut the door to the observatory – but the hallway was empty behind him. The window at the end was open, curtains fluttering. Shinichi sighed. Some things never changed.

 

_Some weeks later..._

 

"KID!" Shinichi burst onto the rooftop with a shout that took breath he didn't really have after sprinting up that many flights of stairs. He couldn't help bending over to catch his breath, even though KID was already at the edge of the roof, ready to take flight. "Wait... please."

KID glanced back over his shoulder, a smile tugging at his lips. "Of all the things people have done to try to catch me, I don't think any of them have ever thought of 'please'," he said.

"That's not why I'm here," Shinichi said, straightening.

When the heist notice had arrived, Shinichi had felt a dizzying sense of relief. He hadn't heard a thing from Kaito _or_ KID the whole time they'd been back. Was he all right? Was he spiraling into a pit of despair, crushed by the overwhelming inevitability of fate? Had he decided to shrug the whole thing off and carry on as usual? With all the chaos of his return – handling Ran and the Junior Detectives, sorting out school, trying to keep a low profile – he didn't have a lot of time to act on his concerns (even if he could have figured out the best way to go about it), but they were there, buzzing constantly in the back of his mind.

And then, there was the heist notice, appearing out of nowhere on some random day. There had been nothing unusual about the note – or rather, nothing more unusual than usual – and the heist itself, when it came around, had been almost textbook. Not that it made it any easier to evade KID's tricks and traps. Just that it felt... odd. Like KID was acting like himself. _Acting_.

Shinichi had tried as hard as he ever did to catch him, though for slightly different reasons, and now here they were on a rooftop just as they had been so many times before – though Shinichi did appreciate actually being able to look KID in the eye now instead of looking _up_ at him.

"And why _are_ you here, tantei-kun?" There was an edge to KID's voice that suggested he knew exactly why and didn't much want to deal with it. Still, he stayed. Shinichi didn't dare take a step closer, though instinct screamed at him to get a grasp on KID before he could vanish.

"I want to talk. I've been doing a lot of thinking, and—"

"He went this way!" A shout came from the stairwell Shinichi had just emerged from. KID's eyes darted to the door and then back to Shinichi.

"The clock tower," Shinichi said hurriedly before KID could bolt. "Tomorrow night?"

KID didn't say anything, didn't nod. He just fell off the roof. Shinichi ran for the edge and caught sight of the glider winging away between buildings.

"He got away?" Nakamori demanded, running over to Shinichi's side. One of his shoes was missing and he was soaking wet.

"Yeah," Shinichi said. "Looks like it."

 

The next night, Shinichi climbed the clock tower in Ekoda as the sun went down, hoping against hope that he would find a gentleman thief waiting for him at the top. The clock chamber was dark and dusty. It smelled like warm metal and unmoved air. It was also empty. Shinichi took a deep breath and opened the door in the clock face, poking his head out to look at the ledge. And at the square below. Far below. Maybe this was a mistake.

"Tantei-kun," came a soft voice behind him. Shinichi choked on air and pulled his head back in quickly. KID was standing there amongst the gears and equipment, hands in his pockets, face shadowed by his hat.

"You came," Shinichi said, not bothering to hide his relief. KID just shrugged. "Are you okay?"

"That doesn't sound like the kind of brilliant revelation that would make me risk my neck meeting you," KID said.

"You're not risking your neck," Shinichi said, annoyed. "What's between us – this isn't about being a detective or a thief. Not long ago, you made the decision to trust me. You still can. As far as I'm concerned, nothing's changed."

KID's laugh was harsh. "Except that now you know I'm a murderer."

Shinichi scowled. Then he turned on his heel, flung open the door in the clock face, and stepped onto the ledge. He heard KID make a noise of protest behind him, and then he was beside him, one hand on his shoulder.

"Be _careful_ ," he hissed. "Not falling to your death isn't as easy as I make it look, you know."

"Yeah. But I also know you won't let me fall."

Kaito shook his head with a small smile. "No. I won't." He sank down to sit on the ledge, legs dangling over the side, leaning against the clock tower. Shinichi carefully sat next to him. Above, the sky had gone purpley-blue. It was a cloudy night. Shinichi wasn't sure where the moon was.

"Two days and two and a half nights," Shinichi said. Kaito looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "That's how long future you held you hostage."

"What— why would you—" Kaito spluttered. Shinichi put a hand on his thigh without really thinking about it. Kaito stilled instantly.

"Because now you know. That's how long he had Heero, too. The night of the attempted poisoning at the café, the day after, another night, another day, and then we found you halfway into the third night. That's how long it took to save future me using Heero's blood or whatever he was doing. Now future you won't have to distract past me with a murder, or try to stall for time any other way."

"But... those things already happened," Kaito said. "They happened to us. We can't change it."

Shinichi snorted. "Novikov's self-consistency principle, right? That's just one theory of time travel, you know. We have no proof it's the right one. Just Quatre's hunch. I've been thinking about the one-to-one lapse, too, and… well, I need to do a little more reading. But Novikov's principle isn't the only one there is."

Hope lighted on Kaito's face for an instant, but then dimmed. "If that principle isn't right, though... we may have created a paradox or something!"

Shinichi raised his eyebrows and looked around obviously. "The world looks pretty okay to me." He looked over at Kaito. "Better than it has in a long time, in fact."

If Kaito blushed, Shinichi couldn't see it in the dim light. But Kaito did put his hand on top of Shinichi's where it still rested on his leg. They studied the reflection of the city's lights on the cloud cover, watched a few stars peek through.

"I should tell you something, too," Kaito said eventually. Shinichi waited quietly for him to gather his thoughts. "I went to talk to myself, the night before we came back home. He told me things. Things I would need to use if I wanted to make that future happen. I'll find Pandora, in a few years. You'll be there. And you'll be shot, right in front of me, the moment I find it. Pandora will be the only way to save you." He said it tonelessly, reciting thoughts he had turned over a thousand times.

"Oh," Shinichi said. "Well that's easy enough, then."

"What? How is that _easy_? And if you're about to say something stupid like 'just let me die' then—"

"No," Shinichi said, laughing. Kaito almost shoved him off the ledge right then. "Look, why are you looking for Pandora?"

Kaito gave him a withering look. "I would have assumed you would have figured that out by now," he said. Shinichi nodded.

"All right, yes, I did look into you a little. The point is, you're trying to draw the Organization out. So, remove the Organization from the equation, and you can stop going after Pandora. We've got a few years; I suggest we make the most of them."

Kaito gaped at him. "Just... take the Organization out? Just like that? Haven't we both been trying to do that for years anyway?"

"I think I might have a little more luck now that I'm not eight years old," Shinichi said modestly. "And besides... didn't your taskforce have a major run-in with them one night a few weeks ago at a bay warehouse after chasing down a stolen police helicopter? I daresay there are a few leads there just waiting to be followed up on."

Kaito blinked at the wonderful, beautiful specimen of a detective sitting beside him before a huge smile blossomed across his face. "You know, I do believe you're right." He got to his feet, offering a hand gallantly down to Shinichi. "Well then, Meitantei. What say we get started?"

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, looks like it's all over except the crying. And the epilogue. And the post-credits scene. *Miracle Max voice* It's only MOSTLY over!


	20. Epilogue

_AC 198_

 

Shinichi woke up.

It took a while. He was out of practice. For example, the usual main event of waking up –  the opening of the eyes – turned out to be far more complicated than he remembered. Oh, actually _opening_ them was easy enough. But then the light hit them and he realized he'd been far too ambitious.

Shinichi squeezed his eyes shut again immediately and rolled over with a groan that elongated itself pornographically as he moved muscles that had known only artificial stimulation for centuries. He brought his hands to his face slowly, then opened his eyes to slits, letting them adjust to the light.

It wasn't _much_ light, really; there were curtains on the windows filtering what seemed to be weak early morning sunlight. He opened his eyes by increments, then sat up slowly and languorously, paying attention to each and every muscle as he did so, and then stretching for good measure. Something tugged at the back of his mind and he ran a hand down his side, pressing tentatively and then more vigorously. He didn't know it, but he was still wearing the clothes Kaito had had him in during his long sleep; they were comfortable and loose-fitting, easy to pull aside and investigate under. He was sore, yes... but not injured. Not anymore.

By the time his feet hit the floor he had a sneaking suspicion of where he was, and when, and the novelty of waking up had quite worn off, driven away by a descending fog of shock. He stumbled to the doorway of the small room (sparsely but nicely appointed) and fumbled at the handle, relieved to find it unlocked.

The door swung open into a larger room, a parlor of some kind, maybe. Shinichi wasn't sure. There were much larger windows here, letting in far more light. The carpet felt plush under his bare feet and he managed two steps forward before reaching out for support again. His hand met some polished piece of furniture and, as his eyes adjusted further, he saw it was a piano. Without really thinking about it, he sank onto the bench and ran his fingers lightly over the keys, just feeling them.

Next thing he knew he was playing. A simple melody he'd long had memorized. Then a more complicated composition crashed into it and he was trying to play both at once. Something in his brain saw a pattern, though, and he accommodated it, letting his fingers spread and arch over notes seemingly at random, trying to pull something coherent out of the instrument. It would work for a few measures and then fall apart, bits of different pieces scattering across the keys as his fingers scrambled to keep up.

Then he heard it: one simple thread that could work, could hold it together. A guiding melody in his head that all the wild notes could branch off from without worry of getting lost. His hands picked up speed and he bent his body to the composition, playing as though his mind depended on it.

He realized he was playing forte and eased back, adding tone and nuance back to the music. His eyes had been squeezed closed. He opened them cautiously, still playing. His shoulders relaxed. He breathed with the music, instead of gasping. And through it all, that unifying melody.

Then he noticed it wasn't in his head. His fingers slowed to a stop and he looked around, astonished.

Quatre Raberba Winner lowered his violin with a shy smile. "Sorry," he said. "It just seemed... right."

Shinichi nodded, then shook his head. "It's me who should be apologizing," he said. Or, tried to say. He got out one syllable before his throat seized and the rest dissolved into coughing. An honest-to-God butler was there in a moment, offering him a glass of water, which he accepted with a nod of thanks. Quatre waited patiently while he drank it slowly to avoid triggering another coughing fit. The butler faded back into whatever woodwork he'd popped out of when Shinichi cleared his throat experimentally with no ill effects.

"I was saying," he tried again. "It's me who should be apologizing. If I'm here, then that means... everything has just happened. With..." _Kaito_.

"There was nothing you could have done," Quatre said gently. "We're just glad you're awake."

"We?" Shinichi's gaze strayed to the door that lead out of the room. Trowa was leaning against the doorframe, a silent shadow. Shinichi didn't know when he'd appeared.

"We're in one of my houses on Earth," Quatre said unselfconsciously. "We moved you here when you stabilized and showed signs of waking up. We thought it might make it a little more comfortable for you. Lessen the shock. It's just me and Trowa here right now, but everyone will be pleased to know you're all right."

A derisive little half-laugh left Shinichi before he could stop it and Quatre cocked his head to the side as though listening to something far away.

"No, they really will," he said, looking at Shinichi curiously. Then, "Shinichi... you know you can come to us for anything. Kaito... Kaito could have, too," he said delicately. Shinichi looked up at him from the piano bench, confused. "We would have helped wake you. Do you know why – well, why Kaito didn't just ask?"

"Are you serious?" Shinichi asked. "After what happened in—" _the present._ Except _this_ was the present now. "—when Duo and Heero fell through the portal? And that was, what, just a week or two ago for you guys? No way. You're really nice, Quatre, but I doubt Heero would have been willing – and even if he was, Duo wouldn't be."

Quatre looked back over his shoulder at Trowa, who shook his head. They were both missing something here. Shinichi's words didn't make any sense. "Do you mean... because the Organization abducted Heero? That wasn't your fault."

Shinichi was staring at Quatre like he was speaking Greek. "What are you talking about?"

"The Organization you were fighting abducted Heero while he was in the past. They tortured him. But – he was okay, in the end. He continued to help you afterward. There's no reason he wouldn't have helped Kaito now," Quatre said, resisting the urge to wring his hands. Was something wrong with Shinichi's memory? Behind him, Trowa had pushed away from the doorframe, standing alert.

"That's not how it happened," Shinichi murmured. "We thought... we thought _Heero_ was Organization. Haibara and I. We were holding him, and Duo tried to rescue him. Kaito thought we were in danger... it was all a big misunderstanding, but Heero ended up seriously injured. None of this is ringing a bell?"

Both Quatre and Trowa shook their heads. It was too different from what had actually happened to be mere memory loss, though.

"We followed them back through the portal because we thought they were escaping," Shinichi went on. "But Lady Une and the rest of the Preventers were waiting for us. They arrested us right away, then blackmailed us into helping solve the Clubs case..."

"But none of that happened!" Quatre burst out. "It's not – that's completely different!"

Shinichi's eyes narrowed. His hand went to his chin. "Is it? What about the fact that Heero was kidnapped and we found him in Kaito's base under the Blue Rocket? What about the Blue Rocket murder?"

"Those happened," Trowa said. "Kaito – the Kaito from the past – was kidnapped by his future self, too. Do you remember that?"

"Yes," Shinichi said, nodding. "And... and Kaito – my Kaito – didn't know exactly how long he had been held hostage in the past so he was trying to distract past me, thinking that he needed more time to use Heero to wake me – future me, this me – up."

"That all matches," Quatre said. "But... why the differences?"

Shinichi's eyes widened and he shot to his feet – far too quickly. Blood rushed to his head and he swayed. Quatre and Trowa were at his sides instantly to steady him. He looked from one to the other, then smiled. "I think I've got it. I need to talk to Kaito."

 

When they got to the Preventers base detention level, Shinichi insisted on entering Kaito's cell block alone, on the grounds that he knew him best and that it was more important to have people guarding the exits out of KID's immediate reach.

Kaito seemed to light up when Shinichi entered the room and stood in just the same place the other version of Kaito had stood a mere day and a half ago. He got to his feet and prowled closer to the bars, drinking in the sight of Shinichi – his Shinichi – up and moving around.

"Good morning, tantei-kun," he purred.

Shinichi crossed his arms and stood just out of arm's reach of the bars. "I have questions, KID."

"Oh, KID is it? All right then." Kaito spread his arms magnanimously. "Ask away."

"Why didn't you just _ask_ Heero to help you wake me up?"

Kaito blinked. Whatever he had been expecting from Shinichi, that wasn't it. "Have you forgotten what we put him and Duo through back in 2015?" he asked. "If you know something I could have said that would have convinced him to help us after we held him hostage, ran dozens of tests on him, threatened his boyfriend, and nearly killed him, I am all ears."

Shinichi nodded once, sharply, a smile creeping across his face. "Yeah, that's what I thought, too," he said.

"I know that look. You've figured something out," Kaito said, matching his smile. He stepped as close to the bars as he could. "Tell me."

Shinichi's smile faded as he realized the implications of what he'd just deduced. "Kaito," he said, taking an involuntary step closer to the bars.

It was what Kaito had been waiting for. His arm shot out, grabbing a fistful of Shinichi's shirt and dragging him forward. Before Shinichi could protest, Kaito was kissing him through the bars. The detective made a shocked noise against his mouth, then melted into it, letting himself forget for just a moment where and when they were, letting the kiss take him back several centuries to what they'd had, what they'd grown between them after their adventure in the future.

When Shinichi moaned softly into Kaito's mouth, Kaito knew it was safe to let go of his shirt. Shinichi's hand reached out, questing for some part of Kaito to hold onto as he tried to deepen the kiss – and thumped his forehead against a bar. The kiss turned into a sigh and Shinichi stepped back.

"Kaito, I..." Shinichi trailed off, shaking his head as though to clear it. He frowned, forehead creasing. Kaito watched him calmly, poker face firmly in place as Shinichi brought his fingertips to his lips, then looked at Kaito in alarm. Then he fainted dead away. Kaito winced as he hit the ground. Then he used the impossibly thin lockpicks he'd sewn into the hems of Shinichi's clothes a century ago to make his escape.

 

Quatre had been monitoring Shinichi on the security cameras while Trowa guarded the door, and they responded as quickly as possible as soon as Quatre saw Shinichi collapse. It was not fast enough. Kaito was long gone, and though they put the entire base on high alert, Quatre knew their time was better spent bringing Shinichi around.

It didn't take long. Whatever Kaito had used to knock him out hadn't been potent and the first thing Shinichi did when he woke up was laugh.

"I should know better," he said, getting to his feet without help. "Pretty sure I deserved that." Then he looked at the empty cell and all levity vanished. "I'm going to have to catch him again..."

"Did he tell you what you needed to know?" Trowa asked.

"Oh! Yes," Shinichi said, whirling. "The time portal! It isn't one at all – at least, it's not _only_ a time portal. Are you familiar with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics?"

Quatre's eyebrows went up. "You mean – you think you're from an alternate universe?"

"Yes, but not me – them. The Shinichi and Kaito you worked with? They're from a parallel universe. And when me and _my_ Kaito went through the portal in our past, we were going to a _different_ parallel universe." Shinichi had begun to pace. "Let's call us Alpha. The universe we visited in our version of 2015 was Beta – which means the version of Heero and Duo we met and the version of the Preventers we worked with were Beta. The Shinichi and Kaito who just left here went to Gamma. So, I've actually... never met you before." Shinichi stopped to take a breath. He'd been talking far too quickly.

"So... Beta Heero and Duo didn't like you much," Quatre said. "But us Alphas can all get along, because things happened differently when our Heero and Duo visited the Gamma universe."

"Yes, you've got it," Shinichi said. "Which means... none of this was predetermined. It didn't _have_ to happen this way. Kaito was working under a faulty assumption." Shinichi's eyes widened. "How many times has this happened? The Betas... they have their own version of Shinichi who must have woken up right after we left. And _he_ would have visited a Delta universe in his past. It's a cycle, replicating itself through the multiverse." He stopped pacing abruptly, the enormity of it all freezing him in place.

"Why don't we stop it, then?" Trowa suggested.

 

When Trowa, Quatre, and Shinichi pulled up to the building that had housed the portal, Heero, Duo, and Wufei were already leaving it.

"Let me guess," Duo said, before any of them could even begin to explain. "That damn thief is missing."

"How did you know?" Quatre asked.

"Because we just finished destroying the portal, and guess what? The diamond's mysteriously gone missing. Hi, Shinichi."

"We need to rebuild the portal," Shinichi blurted in lieu of a greeting.

"Oh, this should be good," Wufei muttered.

Quatre quickly outlined Shinichi's conclusions – at least, as much as a multiverse time-travel theory could be _outlined_. Duo looked like he wanted to punch something by the time he was done, Wufei looked like he was picturing the Everest of paperwork about to engulf him, and Heero looked like he was waiting for orders so Shinichi figured Quatre had done a pretty good job.

"Okay, problem," Duo said, raising his face from his hands when it was all laid out. "Even if we did have the diamond – or could use a different focus – the only one who knows how to rebuild this thing is—"

"Kaito KID," Shinichi said with more satisfaction than may have been warranted. The chase was on – and he had all the time in the world to enjoy it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roll credits!  
> (There have to be credits for there to be a post-credits scene, you see.)
> 
> Credit for the phrase "Derisive little half-laugh" goes to [DragonSorceress22](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonSorceress22/works).
> 
> And done! Tune in next week for the final scene!


	21. Post-Credits Scene

_AC 198: Space_

 

Duo watched the colony shrink in the distance behind him. His shuttle, old and well-loved, crawled forward in the midst of a fleet of scrap barges heading for the dump point. Technically a manned escort wasn't necessary – he and Hilde had contacts they trusted out there to take an accurate inventory of the scrap and make sure they were compensated appropriately – but sometimes he just liked to get away and sail through space on his own, away from everything. This was his first trip since before he'd taken a little jaunt _across dimensions_ , and it felt good.

He nudged the shuttle into auto-pilot and leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. One booted foot came up to the console and gave it a shove, spinning the chair around to face the cockpit door.

Where Heero was standing.

"Gah!" Duo nearly fell out of the chair. Then he laughed. "You know, you can just tell me you want to come along instead of sneaking on board _every time_ ," he said.

"You don't exactly announce when you're going," Heero replied.

Duo grinned. "Does that mean you're keeping tabs on me?" Heero shrugged with one shoulder. "Cool," Duo said. "My own guardian angel. You hungry?" He led the way into the tiny galley without waiting for an answer, knowing he wouldn't get one. He'd cook and Heero would eat if he wanted to. Sometimes Heero would help, making silent adjustments to the menu as they went, and sometimes he would just lean against the counter and watch and listen to Duo chatter away. When Heero wasn't there, Duo usually spent the trip just gnawing on ration bars. But cooking together was a tradition now.

It was a small shuttle – one little gallery/eating area, the cockpit, a washing cubicle, and the bunk. It was only meant for one person but they didn't get in each others' way. At night – or rather, when the clock said it was night – Duo would roll into bed and Heero would sit in the cockpit watching the stars slide by. Sometimes Duo would wake up and Heero would be there in the bunk with him. And on a few memorable occasions... well.

Duo's eyes slid over to Heero as he tried to coax a few tomatoes into re-hydrating. He didn't know exactly what to call whatever it was the two of them were doing with each other, but he was very worried that words would break it. Despite regular appearances in his bed, Heero never seemed to... _want_. He responded to Duo's obvious desire readily enough, and seemed to gain satisfaction in the culmination of their activities, but it was obvious that his priority was _Duo_ 's satisfaction.

Sometimes Duo wondered if Heero just had sex with him because he was worried Duo wouldn't want him around otherwise – and if that was the case, what did that make Duo for letting it go on? But any time he tried to bring up the conversation, or tell Heero to just ignore him when they were both curled in the bunk and Duo's body was reacting to the presence of a highly attractive individual in a highly confined space, Heero just shook his head, told him in impossibly few words not to be silly, and... carried on. When the shuttle docked and the run was over, Heero would vanish again for the most part, keeping his distance. And Duo would rather have just this much of Heero and want more than chase him away and have nothing.

But Quatre had said something to him at the start of this last mission, before they'd infiltrated the building that had turned out to house a portal to a freaking alternate universe. He'd said that both Heero and Duo were assuming they knew what the other was thinking, and that if they didn't have an actual conversation using actual words soon, he was going to interfere. He was nonspecific as to how, but Duo knew him well enough to believe it would be uncomfortable for all involved.

With that in mind, better now than later. They had finished cooking and with a table between them (or rather, a counter; it was barely wide enough to be called a table), Duo was pretty sure he wouldn't get... distracted. That was no guarantee Heero would actually talk, though.

"Hey, Heero," Duo said, shoving food around on his plate. Heero didn't say anything, but Duo had his attention. "If you really are like, checking in on me or whatever, you don't have to sneak around. I mean, it's not like you're gonna be bugging me. You can come by whenever, not just when I'm making a trip out to the black, you know?"

Heero thought about this for a few moments, then simply said "Okay." Whether that meant "Okay, I understand, but I'm not going to do anything differently," or "Okay, that sounds good," Duo couldn't tell. He had kind of been hoping his comment would start a more in-depth conversation, but this was Heero. There was really only one way to get to where he was trying to go, and that was directly.

"Um," _Brilliant start, Duo, this is going so well. I am going to kill Quatre._ "Heero, why _do_ you randomly show up on these scrap runs? Is it just – I mean, are you bored or what?"

To most people, Heero's expression would not have changed. But Duo recognized the preternatural stillness of Heero's posture, the way his eyes darted to every available exit (not that there were any, really, though Duo would not put it past him to put on a space suit and jump out of the airlock if he felt like he had to). Duo focused on the plate in front of him to put Heero more at ease, though he didn't know why the question should have raised his guard in the first place.

"Do you not want me to?" Heero asked, which wasn't an answer at all.

"No, I want you to. Hell, I want you to _more_. For fuck's sake, Heero, I'll take all of you I can get," Duo said, then wanted to bite his tongue off at Heero's widening eyes. "But that's not – I mean, no pressure. I get that you like being alone and stuff."

Heero was fiddling with a knife, turning it over and over in his hand. It was just a butter knife, but Duo wasn't sure if it was just a nervous action or if Heero was actually thinking about stabbing something. He swallowed.

"You want," Heero started, then trailed off. "I don't know what you want." He put the knife down with a clatter and stared at Duo, perplexed.

"I just _said_ ," Duo said, a little exasperated. It wasn't like it was a difficult concept. All the knowledge crammed into that head and somehow Dr. J hadn't managed to fit in Relationships 101. "I want you. And I don't mean just, like—" He gestured in the direction of the bunk. "—that. I mean I want to fucking _be_ with you. I want to call you when I see something that makes me think of you, and I want to have _this_ —" He encompassed the kitchen with a swing of his fork. "—all the time, or at least _regularly_. And I want you to be there when I come home, or I want to be the one greeting you when you come home, but I'm a greedy bastard so feel free to tell me to fuck off," he said. "And _don't_ ," he went on, punctuating this with a jab of his fork in Heero's direction. "Don't you _dare_ just say 'okay' or do anything like that just because it would make me happy and you have some weird thing about ignoring the things _you_ want when it comes to— hey!"

Heero had reached across the table and knocked aside the fork. The clatter as it hit the ground mingled with the clatter of dishes against each other as Heero's knee shoved them aside. If Duo had thought the table some protection, he had been sorely mistaken because Heero had climbed onto it to get to him and was now kissing him hard enough to generate sparks behind his eyelids, not seeming to care that Duo's plate of food was now in his lap or that the hand Heero was supporting himself with on the table had landed in a bowl of carrots. Heero's other hand was behind Duo's head, fingers digging into the hair at the top of his braid.

It was the first time: the first time Heero had initiated this kind of contact. Always before, he had responded to Duo's touch, or to Duo's body, but never before had he come to Duo first.

Duo pulled back to breathe – he knew from experience that he'd suffocate waiting for Heero to stop first – and stared, chest heaving. Heero licked his lips, then looked down and realized the mess he'd made. He slid off the table and began cleaning up, seemingly unaffected. Duo swallowed.

"So... is that... look, Quatre said we have to use actual words when we talk about this, or he's gonna – well actually I don't know what, but I could use some verbal communication right now, yeah?"

Heero looked over his shoulder from where he was putting dishes in the sonic. "I thought you just wanted to forget," he said. "When you come out here."

"Well, kinda," Duo said, scratching the back of his head. "I come out here to get away. It's easier to forget when no one's looking at you and thinking about who you are, you know?"

Heero nodded. He knew. "I thought that's what the sex was, too. That you needed it for that. That you didn't want... anything else," Heero said.

"And the fact that I haven't been with anyone else since we started this whole... whatever this is... That didn't tip you off?"

"I haven't been watching you _that_ closely."

"Right. So – just to be perfectly clear: I am pro dating. I am pro dating _you_. But what do you want? Because I thought you were all about the lone-wolf thing. To be honest I figured you just needed human interaction once every couple months and you liked it out here because there was only one human to deal with."

Heero snorted lightly. It was close to a laugh. "I don't just fall into a black hole when I'm not around, Duo," he said. "I'm actually around people all the time, just blending in. I get plenty of interaction. I come out here to be with you without interfering in your life. I want... all those things you said. I didn't know you did too. Or that you'd want a constant reminder—"

"Of the war? I'm gonna think about that whether you're around or not. It's better when you're with me, though," Duo said, finally feeling steady enough to get up and help Heero clean up. "God, we're stupid."

"There's a battery of classified OZ test results indicating otherwise. Well," Heero shot a sly look at Duo. "For me, anyway."

"Well excuuuuse me for not being awesome at piloting mobile suits for the enemy," Duo said, giving Heero a little shove. Heero caught his hand, looked at it for a minute, then apparently decided he wanted to keep it because he cleaned up the rest of dinner one handed, kiting an amused Duo along behind him. "Is this, just... is this us now?" Duo asked, laughing. "Cuz I gotta say I did not think you were into physical contact all that much."

Heero rolled his eyes at him. "I couldn't care less about sex one way or the other," he said. " _You_ , on the other hand – you I can't do without."

"Well I'll be damned," Duo said, marveling. He tugged Heero toward him, close enough that Heero had to look up to meet his eyes, and then dropped a kiss onto his lips. Heero let him, smiling.

The nightmares left them both alone that night.

 

The End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Done, it's all DONE!
> 
> ...except the sequel, which I'll start posting next weekend. It's much shorter than this one and is mainly concerned with other-Kaito and other-Shinichi working through their shit with a little help from the Gundam folks. If that sounds relevant to your interests, then stay tuned!


End file.
